ja'-van (yawan, meaning unknown):
⇒See a list of verses on JAVAN in the Bible.
(1) In Ge 10:2,4 = 1Ch 1:5,7 Septuagint Iouan); Isa 66:19; Eze 27:13 Septuagint Hellas, Greece); Da 8:21 m; Da 10:20; 11:2; Zec 9:13; Joe 3:6 (Heb 4:6) Septuagint hoi Hellenes, i.e. "Greeks"), "son" of Japheth, and "father" of Elisha, Tars, Kittim, and Rodarim, i.e. Rhodes (incorrectly "Dodanim" in Ge 10:4). Javan is the Greek Iaon or Ia(v)on, and in Gen and 1 Ch = the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, probably here = Cyprus. The reference in Eze 27:13 (from which that in Isa 66:19 is copied) is the country personified. In Joel the plural yewanim, is found. In Dan 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.
⇒See also the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia.
David Francis Roberts