Genesis 10:2

The sons of Japheth; Gomer. Gomer was the ancestor of a people known in Assyrian inscriptions as Gamir or Gimirrai. They are the Cimmerians of ancient Greek literature, and belong to the Indo-European family of nations. According to the Greek author Homer, the Cimmerians lived in Northern Europe. They appeared in the northern provinces of the Assyrian Empire at the time of Sargon II, during the 8th century B.C. They invaded ancient Armenia, but were pushed westward by the Assyrians. An old Assyrian letter comments that none of their interpreters knew the language of the people of Gomer. The Cimmerians overthrew, in turn, the Phrygian and Lydian kingdoms of Asia Minor, but were gradually absorbed by the peoples of Anatolia. Poets of the time speak of the terror inspired in men’s hearts by the Cimmerians. In testimony of their power, a great part of Anatolia once bore the name Gomer. The ancients spoke of the “Cimmerian Bosporos,” and the Armenians still call part of their country Gamir. It is thought that the Crimea bears their name to the present day.

Magog. The identification of this name is difficult. In Ezekiel 38, 39 Gog, a king of Magog, appears as a cruel enemy of God’s people. From him may have come the barbaric tribe of Gagaia named in a letter from a 15th-century Babylonian king to an Egyptian Pharaoh. This tribe is assumed to have lived somewhere north of the Black Sea, probably in proximity to the descendants of Gomer, a brother of Magog.

Madai. The Medes, or Madai, appear for the first time in Assyrian inscriptions of the 9th century B.C. as a people who lived on the high Iranian plateau to the east of Assyria. After playing a minor role in the history of the ancient world, they appear suddenly in the 7th century B.C. as a powerful nation under King Cyaxares, when in conjunction with the Babylonians they overthrew the Assyrian Empire. When the two allies divided up the shattered empire, the Medes received the northern provinces up to the river Halys in Asia Minor, governing their vast domain from Ecbatana, the Biblical Achmetha (see Ezra 6:2). Cyaxares’ son Astyages was defeated and deposed by the Persian ruler Cyrus, who consolidated the kingdoms of Media and Persia and then overthrew Babylon. For the first time in history world supremacy thus fell into the hands of an Indo-European race.

Javan. The Greeks, or Ionians, descended from Javan. The early Ionians are first mentioned in Hittite records as the inhabitants of the western coastal regions of Asia Minor. This was in the middle of the second millennium B.C., about the time Moses wrote Genesis. In Assyrian inscriptions they are called Jamnai.

Tubal. The Tibarenians of Herodotus and the Tabalaeans of Assyrian cuneiform sources are to be identified with the descendants of Tubal. Tubal is mentioned in inscriptions of the 12th century B.C. as being allied with Muski (Meshech) and Kaski in an attempt to conquer northeastern Mesopotamia. Shalmaneser III refers to Tabal as a country for the first time in the 9th century B.C., whereas inscriptions a century later locate the Tabalaeans as settlers in the Anti-Taurus Mountains of southern Cappadocia. They were later pushed into Armenia, where Greek authors of the classical period came in contact with them.

Meshech. Probably ancestor of the Moschoi of Greek classical writers, the Mushku of Assyrian inscriptions. These inscriptions represent Tabal and Mushku as allies, as in Ezekiel 38. The Mushku appear in the northern part of Mesopotamia for the first time during the reign of Tiglath-pileser I, about 1100 B.C. A little later they settled in Phrygia, and from thence, under their king Mita, made war on Sargon II, in the 8th century. In his struggle against the Assyrians the last king of Carchemish tried in vain to get help from Mita, king of Meshech. After ruling over northern Anatolia for a time the Mushku lost it, first to the Cimmerians and then to the Lydians.

Tiras. Probably ancestor of the Tursenoi. This people, named after Tiras, lived on the west coast of Asia Minor, where they were notorious as pirates. Related probably to the Italian Tyrsenians, they appear in Egyptian inscriptions of the late 13th century B.C. under the name Turusha. They played a leading role among the migrating coastal peoples of the pre-Hellenic period.