Javan

JAVAN ja'-van (yawan, meaning unknown):

(1) In Genesis 10:2,4 = 1 Chronicles 1:5,7 Septuagint Iouan); Isaiah 66:19; Ezekiel 27:13 Septuagint Hellas, Greece); Daniel 8:21 m; 10:20; 11:2; Zechariah 9:13; Joel 3:6 (Hebrew 4:6) Septuagint hoi Hellenes, i.e. "Greeks"), "son" of Japheth, and "father" of Elisha, Tars, Kittim, and Rodarim, i.e. Rhodes (incorrectly "Dodanim" in Genesis 10:4). Javan is the Greek Iaon or Ia(v)on, and in Ge and 1Ch = the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, probably here = Cyprus. The reference in Ezekiel 27:13 (from which that in Isaiah 66:19 is copied) is the country personified. In Joe the plural yewanim, is found. In Da the name is extended to the Greeks generally. Corroboration of the name is found in Assyrian (Schrader, editor, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, II, 43). "The Persian Yauna occurs in the same double reference from the time of Darius; compare Aesch. Persian., 176, 562" (Skinner, Gen, 198). In Egyptian the word is said to be yevan-(n)a; in the Tell el-Amarna Letters Yivana is mentioned as being in the land of Tyre. See HDB, II, 552b.

(2) Place (Ezekiel 27:19); the name is missing in Septuagint.

David Francis Roberts

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Bibliography Information

Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'JAVAN'".  "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia".  1915.