Javan in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

ja'-van (yawan, meaning unknown): (1) In Gen 10:2,4 = 1 Ch 1:5,7 Septuagint Iouan); Isa 66:19; Ezek 27:13 Septuagint Hellas, Greece); Dan 8:21 m; 10:20; 11:2; Zec 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 Gen 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 Ezek 27:13 (from which that in Isa 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 (Ezek 27:19); the name is missing in Septuagint. David Francis Roberts