ja'-van (yawan, meaning unknown):
(1) InGe 10:2,4=1Ch 1:5,7Septuagint Iouan);Isa 66:19;Eze 27:13Septuagint Hellas, Greece);Da 8:21m; 10:20; 11:2;Zec 9:13;Joe 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" inGe 10:4). Javan is the Greek Iaon or Ia(v)on, and in Ge and 1Ch = the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, probably here = Cyprus. The reference inEze 27:13(from which that inIsa 66:19is copied) is the country personified. In Joe the plural yewanim, is found. In Da 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 (Eze 27:19); the name is missing in Septuagint.
David Francis Roberts