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; Daniel 10:20; 11:2; Zechariah 9:13; Joel 3:6 (Hebrews 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 Gen and 1 Ch = 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 Joel the plural yewanim, is found. In Dan 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

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.