JAPHETH jā’ fĭth (יֶ֜פֶת, pausal form of yĕphĕth LXX ̓Ιάφεθ meaning: God will make wide or enlarge [Gen 9:24]). One of the three sons of Noah.

It is difficult to know if Japheth is the second or third son of Noah. In most of the passages referring to him (Gen 5:32; 6:10; 7:13; 9:18; 10:1; 1 Chron 1:4), Japheth is listed as the third or youngest son of his father. However, Genesis 9:22, 24 seems to say that Ham the father of Canaan is the youngest. Genesis 10:21 has also been construed to support the idea that Japheth is the second son rather than the third.

Sometime after the Flood, Noah planted a vineyard and became drunk from the wine that he made. In a drunken stupor he lay uncovered in his tent. His “youngest son,” Ham (Gen 9:22, 24), broke the contemporary moral code by looking upon his father’s nakedness. Apparently the episode came quite by accident, but intentionally or not, it was a sin in that time. Ham seems to have immediately told his brothers what had happened. Shem and Japheth placed a garment on their shoulders and walking backward covered their father without looking upon him. Thus they were not guilty of committing the sin. When Noah awoke and learned of the matter, he pronounced a curse upon Canaan the son of Ham (see [http://biblegateway/wiki/Canaan, Canaanites CANAAN]). Noah then blessed Shem (see Shem) and Japheth.

God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in tents of Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave (Gen 9:27).

Later generations considered this as a prediction that the descendants of Shem and Japheth would live amicably together, and the Canaanites would be their servants. The subjugation of the Canaanites in the time of Joshua is supposed to be fulfillment of Noah’s curse.

The blessing pronounced upon Japheth by his father carried with it the idea that his descendants would be greatly multiplied (enlarged) in the future. The Table of Nations recorded in Genesis 10 indicates that Japheth became the father of a wide-ranging family of peoples, whose homes lay to the N and (mostly) W of Pal. In fact, fourteen nations of Japhethites are listed in Genesis 10. The area of their occupation ranged all the way from the smelting plants of Tarshish (Spain) on the W to the Caspian Sea on the E. This included what is now the steppes of southern Russia, much of Asia Minor, the islands of the Mediterranean, and the coasts of southern Europe. Japheth is said to be the father of Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras (Gen 10:2; 1 Chron 1:4). These are the progenitors of the Indo-European (Caucasian) family of nations.

Although all the descendants of Japheth are more or less important to Biblical history, the writer of Genesis 10 appears to single out the sons of Gomer and Javan for special attention. The descendants of Gomer seem to be the Gimirrai, or Gimirraya, of the Assyrian chronicles, but known to the Greeks as Cimmerians. The sons of Javan are the Greeks, i.e., the Ionians of Homer, and esp. the Ionians who lived along the coast of western Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean Sea.

Bibliography C. H. Gordon, Introduction to Old Testament Times (1953), 25-28; M. F. Unger, Archaeology and the Old Testament (1954); 73-82; S. Sandmel, The Hebrew Scriptures, An Introduction to Their Literature and Religious Ideas (1963), 53, 54; G. L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (1964), 201-203.