javan Summary and Overview

(1.) The fourth "son" of Japheth (Gen. 10:2), whose descendants settled in Greece, i.e., Ionia, which bears the name of Javan in Hebrew. Alexander the Great is called the "king of Javan" (rendered "Grecia," Dan. 8:21; 10:20; compare 11:2; Zech. 9:13). This word was universally used by the nations of the East as the generic name of the Greek race. (2.) A town or district of Arabia Felix, from which the Syrians obtained iron, cassia, and calamus (Ezek. 27:19).

(clay). 1. A son of Japheth. #Ge 10:2,4| Javan was regarded as the representative of the Greek race. The name was probably introduced into Asia by the Phoenicians, to whom the Ionians were naturally better known than any other of the Hellenic races, on account of their commercial activity and the high prosperity of their towns on the western coast of Asia Minor. 2. A town in the souther part of Arabia (Yemen), whither the Phoenicians traded. #Eze 27:19|

JA'VAN , the fourth son of Japheth, and the ancestor of the Grecians or lonians. Gen 10:2; 1 Chr 1:5, 1 Chr 1:7. Hence the word "Javan" in the O.T. denotes Greece, or the Greeks. Isa 66:19; Eze 27:13.

1. Son of Japheth, father of Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim (Genesis 10:2,4). The same as Ionia, the branch of the Greek race best known in the East, so expressing the Greeks generally. Yavnan is the Assyrian designation in cuneiform inscriptions of Sargon's time. Yuna is their Persian designation in Persepolitan inscriptions. In <236619> Isaiah 66:19 James is one representative of the Gentile world. Its commerce in "the persons of men (slaves) and vessels of brass" with Tyre is mentioned Ezekiel 27:13. In Joel 3:3,6, God reproves the nations because "they have given a boy for (as price for prostitution of) an harlot, and sold a girl for wine," especially Tyre and Sidon; "the children of Judah and Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians (sons of Javan), that ye might remove them far from their border." Others from the mention of "Sabeans" (ver. 8) think Javan in Arabia is meant. (See 2). Some germs of civilization probably passed into Greece through Jewish slaves imported from Phoenicia. Greece, and her king Alexander, is prophetically mentioned (Daniel 8:21; 10:20; 11:2). God in retribution for the enslaving of Judah's children (Zechariah 9:13) declares He will fill His bow with Judah and Ephraim as His arrows, and "raise up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece"; fulfilled partly in His raising up the Jewish Maccabees against Antiochus Epiphanes the representative of Greece; hereafter to be exhaustively consummated in Israel being made victorious over the last antichrist, Antiochus' antitype. 2. In Ezekiel 27:19 Javan is a Greek settlement in Arabia. Then instead of "going to and fro" translated "from Uzal." the capital of Arabia Felix or Yemen, Sanaa. However KJV yields good sense: all peoples, whether near as the Israelite "Dan" on the sea coast, or far off as" Javan," or the Greeks who "go to and fro," frequented thy fairs with "iron, cassia," etc. brought from various quarters.