Day 21 Devotion – Table of Nations: Japhethites

Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations. Genesis 10:1-5

Picture: The descendants of Japheth are shown in the green ovals in the picture. Notice that they settled to the north of Israel in Europe and Asia.

Chapters 10 and 11 of Genesis are is reverse order. Chapter 11 records the Tower of Babel that led to the people groups scattering and Chapter 10 (the Table of Nations) tells where they scattered to. Today we will look at Noah’s son Japheth. Most of these names point toward the upper Middle East and Asia. Most scholars believe Tarshish was ancient Spain so they also settled in Europe. This means that Japheth is the Father of the lighter skinned races of Europe and Asia. At one time scholars thought that Magog referred to Russia and that Meshech referred to Moscow and that Tubal referred to the Russian city of Tobalsk. This gave rise to the end times interpretation from Ezekiel saying that Gog and Magog would descend on Israel that it was a picture of the Russians attacking. During the cold war this was an easily pictured scenario. Archaeology has turned up that these places were not referring to Russia at all but rather to the upper Middle East including Turkey and Iran. This means that much of what we have been taught about the end times is based on faulty information.
If Tarshish is Spain, then this sheds light on the story of Jonah. He was called to go to Nineveh but took a ship to Tarshish. This means he ran in 180 degrees the opposite direction from where God wanted him to go. Linguists recognized three families of languages. These people groups are grouped in what is called the Indo-European languages. English is a descendant of this group. Greek is also in this group as well as Phoenician, which gave rise to the alphabet.