I. THE JAPHETIC NATIONS.
These belonged to seven families, who are called "sons of Japheth" in Gen. 10:2; and seven others, who are spoken of as his grandsons in Gen. 10:3, 4. These statements are not necessarily to be understood literally. There may have been other sons and grandsons of Japheth; but these were the ones whose names are remembered as the founders of nations. The peoples descended from Japheth belong to what is called the Aryan or Indo-European race.
1. Gomer is named, in Ezek. 38:2-6, as a race opposed to Israel after the captivity. They were probably the people whom the Assyrians called Gimirrai, and the Greeks Kimmerioi. Their name is perpetuated in the Crimea, their early home. A branch of this race moving westward became the Cimbri, who were formidable enemies of Rome; and probably another, the Cymry, settled in the British Isles, and were the ancestors of the Welsh and the Irish. The Celtic races, to which the French partly belong, are descended from this family.
Three of the families descended from Gomer formed separate tribes, named, in the table of nations in Gen. 10:3, after Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah. All of these had homes around or near the Black Sea.
(1.) Ashkenaz is the name of a people spread out of Mysia and Phrygia in Asia Minor. "Ascanios," a Greek form of the word, occurs in Homer as the name of a Mysian and Phrygian prince. It is, however, true that, in Jer. 51:27, Ashkenaz is located in Western Armenia, whither this people had later migrated. Here, also, the Assyrians located them.
(2.) Riphath was formerly supposed to point to the Riphæn Mountains, north of the Danube and west of the Black Sea, but this is very doubtful.
(3.) Togarmah (Ezek. 27:14; 38:6) is identified with the land of Armenia, whose people have a tradition that they are descended from Targom.
2. Magog (called, in Ezek. 38 and 39, Gog, the prefix Ma being thought to signify "land") is generally understood to designate the Scythians.
