5The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.6And the
its component laws or traditions, which of course may be much earlier. Religiously, the worth of this table is to be seen in the conviction of the fundamental unity of the human race, which is here expressed. The significance of this may best be felt if we contrast the Greek traditions which display a keen interest in the origins of their own peoples but none at all in that of the barbarians. Ancient society in general was vitiated by failure to recognise the moral obligation involved in our common humanity. Even Israel did not wholly transcend this danger, and its sense of spiritual pre-eminence may have taken an unworthy form in Jewish particularism; but at least, as we here see, there lay beneath the surface the instinct that ultimately the families of the earth are one, and their God one.
5-7 (= Gen. x. 2-4). The Sons of Japheth.
5. The sons of Japheth] The writer begins with the northern peoples.
Gomer] to be identified with the Gimirrai of the Assyrian monuments, the Κιμμέριοι of the Greeks, who migrated from South Russia into Asia Minor (Pontus and Cappadocia) under the pressure of the Scythians (Hdt. I. 103; IV. 11, 12; cp. Ezek. xxxviii. 6, R.V.).
Magog] In Ezek. xxxviii. 2 (R.V.) judgement is denounced on "Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal" who is represented as accompanied in his migration by the "hordes" of Gomer and Togarmah (ver. 6), "all of them riding upon horses" (ver. 15). Magog represents therefore one of several tribes of northern nomads, possibly the Scythians.
Madai] i.e. Media or the Medes. Of the many allusions in the O.T. to this famous people, the first is found in 2 Kin. xvii. 6; cp. also Is. xiii. 17; Jer. xxv. 25; Est. i. 3; Dan. i. 9. The Median Empire dates from the 7th cent. B.C., but the Medes are referred to by Assyrian inscriptions of the 9th cent., at which time they seem to occupy the mountainous regions to the S. and S.W. of the Caspian Sea. They were the first Aryan race to play an important part in Semitic history.
Javan] the Ionians, a branch of the Greek peoples. They were already settled in the Aegean islands and on the west coast of Asia Minor at the dawn of Greek history. Being a seafaring nation and having a slave-trade with Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 13; Joel iii. 6 [Heb. iv. 6 "Grecians"]), they became known to Israel at an early date. In some late passages of the O.T. (e.g. Zech. ix. 13; Dan. viii. 21, xi. 2) Javan denotes the world-power of the Greeks, established by the conquests of Alexander the Great and maintained in part by his successors, in particular the Seleucid kings of Syria.
Tubal, and Meshech] cp. Is. lxvi. 19; Ps. cxx. 5. They are mentioned together Ezek. xxvii. 13, xxxii. 26, xxxviii. 2, 3, xxxix. 1; and are to be identified with the Τιβαρηνοί and Μοσχοί of Hdt. III. 94, who are the
