The sons of Japheth,.... Who though mentioned last, the genealogy begins with him, by a figure which rhetoricians call a "chiasm". The posterity of Japheth are those whom Hesiod often calls iapetionidhv, "Iapetionides", and him iapetov, "Iapetus".
According to Josephus , the sons of Japheth inhabited the earth, beginning from the mountains Taurus and Amanus, and then went on in Asia unto the river Tanais, and in Europe unto Gadira. Seven of his sons are mentioned, and the first is Gomer; from whom, according to the same writer , came the Gomareans or Gomerites, in his time called by the Greeks Galatians, that is, the Gauls of Asia minor, who inhabited Phrygia; both Gomer and Phrygia signifying the same, as Bochart observes, and the country looking as if it was torrified or burnt; and Pliny makes mention of a town in Phrygia, called Cimmeris; and the Cimmerians and Cimbri are derived by some from this Gomer, whom Herodotus makes mention of as in Asia and Scythia, and speaks of a country called Cimmerius, and of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; and these seem to be the Gauls before mentioned, under a different name; and it is to be observed, that the Welsh, who sprung from the Gauls, call themselves to this day Cumero, or Cymro and Cumeri.
It is plain from Eze 38:6 that Gomer and his people lay to the north of Judea, and the posterity of Japheth went first into the northern parts of Asia, and then spread themselves into Europe: six more of his sons follow, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras; the first of these, Magog, was the father of a northern people which bore his name, see Eze 38:2 and according to Josephus , who is generally followed, are the same that were called Scythians; from Madai came the Medes, often spoken of in Scripture, along with the Persians; so Josephus says, from him came the nation of Madaeans, whom the Greeks call Medes; and very frequently in Scripture the Medes go by the name of Madai, their original ancestor; see Da 5:28 but Mr.
Mede is of opinion, that Macedonia was the seat of this Madai, which was formerly called Aemathia; that is, as he gives the etymology of it, aia, "Madai", the country of Madai; but the former sense is generally received.
Javan is by all agreed to be the father of the Grecians; hence Alexander, king of Grecia, is in Da 8:21 called king of Javan; and one part of Greece bore the name of Ionia; and the sea that washed it is called the Ionian sea.
And his posterity areiaonev, "Iaonians", in Homer and Aristophanes ; and the scholiast of the latter says, that the Barbarians call all Greeks Iaonians. The next son of Japheth is Tubal or Thobel, as Josephus calls him, who says the Thobelians in his time were called Iberians, a people in Asia, that dwelt near the Euxine sea; and in Albania was a place called Thabilaca, as may be seen in Ptolemy , and another called Thilbis, from whom might spring the Iberians in Europe, now called Spaniards; but Bochart thinks that the Tibarenes are the descendants of Tubal, a people that dwelt between the Trapezuntii and Armenia the less; and he wonders that this never was thought of by any; but in that he is mistaken, for our countryman Mr.
Broughton makes the Tibarenes to spring from Tubal; and Epiphanius many hundreds of years before him. Meshech, his next son, is mentioned along with Tubal in Eze 27:13 from him came the Mosocheni, as Josephus , who in his time were called Cappadocians, with whom there was a city then named Mazaca, since Caesarea ; and these seem to be the same that Pliny calls Moscheni, who inhabited the mountains Moschici, which were at the north east of Cappadocia.
Some derive the Muscovites from them, which is not improbable: the last of Japheth's sons is Tiras or Thiras, which Jarchi interprets very wrongly by Paras, or Persia; much better the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, and so a Jewish chronologer , by Thracia; for the descendants of Thiras, as Josephus observes, the Greeks call Thracians; and in Thrace was a river called Atyras , which has in it a trace of this man's name; and Odrysus, whom the Thracians worshipped, is the same with Tiras, which god sometimes goes by the name of Thuras; and is one of the names of Mars, the god of the Thracians.
In Theogonia. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1. Ib. Phaleg. l. 3. c. 8. col. 171, 172. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 30. Clio sive, l. 1. c. 16, 103. & Melpomene sive, l. 4. c. 11, 12, 13. Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c.
6. sect. 1.) Ib. Dissert. 48. Iliad. 13. ver. 685. Acharneus. act. 1. scen. 3. p. 376. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1. Geograph. l. 5. c. 12. Phaleg. l. 3. c. 12. col. 180. See his Works, p. 2, 58. Ancorat.
p. 546. Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) Vid. Ammian. Marcellin. l. 20. p. 170. Ed. Vales. Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 9, 10. Sepher Juchasin, fol. 145. 1. Vid. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 10. 1. Ut supra. (Antiqu.
l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 4. c.