Javan

Biblical Record

Javan first appears in Genesis 10:2 as a son of Japheth. His brothers are listed as Gomer, Magog, Madai, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Genesis 10:4 names the sons of Javan as Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. The same genealogy is repeated in 1 Chronicles 1:5 and 1:7, where the Hebrew text gives Dodanim as "Rodanim." The variation results from a single Hebrew letter having been transmitted differently.

Scripture records nothing about Javan's personal life or deeds. His name appears only in the genealogies.

Significance Within the Bible

Genesis 10 records that the nations were divided and spread abroad from the three sons of Noah. The chapter is commonly called the "Table of Nations." Within it, the line of Japheth is associated mainly with the peoples of the coastlands and islands and of the northern and western regions (Genesis 10:5).

In later books, the name Javan refers less to an individual than to a people and a land.

• Isaiah 66:19 lists Javan, together with Tarshish and Tubal, among the distant places to which God's glory would be declared.
• Ezekiel 27:13 records that Javan, along with Tubal and Meshech, traded with Tyre in "the persons of men and vessels of brass."
• The references to Greece in Daniel 8:21, Joel 3:6, Zechariah 9:13, and elsewhere translate the same Hebrew word, Yavan. Korean Bibles render the word in these contexts as "Hella" (Greece), just as the KJV renders it "Grecia," "Grecians," or "Greece."

The New Testament does not mention the name Javan directly.

Interpretation and Debate

Javan is widely regarded as corresponding to the name for the Ionians of ancient Greece. Ionia comprised the western coast of Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean Sea. The Jewish historian Josephus is also said to have described the Ionians and the Greeks as descendants of Javan. The names of Javan's sons are likewise often associated with places: Kittim is commonly linked with the island of Cyprus, and Rodanim with the island of Rhodes.

Interpreters differ in how they read Genesis 10. Conservative interpreters read Javan as a historical individual and the ancestor of the Greek people. Many scholars regard the list as an arrangement of the relationships among peoples and regions in genealogical form, viewing Javan as the name of a people recorded as though it were a personal name.

Some accounts trace particular modern peoples or nations directly back to Javan. Such claims are later conjectures that the biblical text does not support.

In the Korean Church

Javan is rarely the subject of a sermon in his own right in the Korean church. He is mentioned mainly when the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 is read during Bible reading programs or Bible study. When the prophecies concerning Greece in the Book of Daniel are explained, it is sometimes noted that the original Hebrew word is "Javan."