fV — IUiT — * Jayan.’
Indo-Germanic; and not from the Hebrew, ‘ mud,’ or 1 oppressor.’
In this instance, the Masoretic points (not added to the Text until after the fifth century
of our era), and the modern Jewish reading of V for U, alone obscure a name
whose literal meaning springs out at first glance.
“ The barbarians called all Greeks by the name of Ionians,” says the Scholiast on
Aristophanes: and the Greeks revenged themselves by terming all other people barbarians.
The LXX correctly transcribe Iwuav; for Iaovss is the older form in Homer; a name
to be distinguished from the later loves, according to Pausanias. Herodotus recounts
how the Athenians, previously called Pelasgi, received the name Ionians, from ION, son
of Xuthus ; the traditionary ancestor of the Ionian race.
In D a n i e l xi. 2, where King James’s version renders Grecia, the original has IUN;
but the age of this document not ascending earlier than b . c . 175-160, in the reign of
Antiochus Epiphanes, we go back to the 27th March, b . c . 196, date of the coronation
of Ptolemy Epiphanes at Memphis, recorded on the Rosetta Stone; where the word
EXX>jvikois, in Greek, is rendered, on the corresponding demotic and hieroglyphic texts,
by IUNiN: a name given by Egyptians to the Greeks at every age, back to the earliest
records we possess in which Ionians are mentioned— documents anterior to Xth Genesis
by some centuries, because ascending to the XVIIIth dynasty.
TJpon the Assyrian monuments of Khorsabad, the same name, J a o u n i n , is read by
cuneiform scholars, as early as the eighth century b . e . ; and upon the Persian sculptures
of the Achsemenidan dynasty, in the sixth century b . c . , the Greeks, as YUNA,
or Ionia, frequently appear.
Javanas, or Tavanas, is the Hindoo appellative of the Greeks, in the “ Laws of
Manou,” who therein are classed among the Soudras, or c degenerates’ ; and, although
the fabulous antiquity of these Sanscrit records has sunk far below the pretensions
of the so-called Mosaic, their compilation certainly ascends to the fourth century of
our era, if not beyond. While, finally, among the Arabs, ancient and modern, Yoondn
is the generic name for Greeks in general, and Ionians in particular.
By IUN, or Ionian, the writer of Xth Genesis seems to class the Greeks collectively,
as far as they were known to him; and Ionia, on the western coast of Asia Minor, is
the approximate limit of its geographical application.580
b n n — TiBL— if T u b al . ’
Indo-Germanic. Not the Hebrew, * he who is conducted,’ &c.
The LXX place before Thubal another son of Japheth, called Elisa; but I s a i a h , by
exiling “ those who escape” to “ Tubal and Javan, the states afar off,” shows that, in
the idea of the writer of the second (or spurious) part of the oracles ascribed to this prophet,
Thubal ranked among distant northern nations of the gentile world. Connected,
in E z e k i e l , always with Meshech, by whom Tubal is immediately followed in Xth Genesis,
these two nations of the “ uncircumcised” must have lain close together in Hebrew
geography.
Iberia, from the roots e b b ., and vtrep, ‘ beyond,’ or, so to say, ‘ the yonder erf was the
name of an Asiatic country east of Colchis, south of Caucasus, west of Albania, and north
of Armenia; in short, corresponding’to Gebrgia of the present day; classically denominated
Imeriti. The substitution of b for m, at once changes the Imeriti into the Ibe-
riti: to which prefixing the antique particle t , we obtain the t-lbarenes of Herodotus
and Strabo: a designation equivalent to wZ/ra-Caucasians. The word Iberian, in the
sense of ‘yonderer,’ was given to many remote nations by aliens to the formers’ autoc-
thonous traditions.
Identified as the TcSapnvot of Strabo, who, by Herodotus, are located with the Mb'schoi,
they seem to have been subject to Gog, Cauc-Asus, in the days of Ezekiel, and to
have supplied slaves and brazen vessels to the bazaars of Tyre.
Through the common mutation of b for l , Tubal is fixed among the Tibareni, (about
Pontus, on the south-east of the Black Sea, in the neighborhood of Colchis,) from ante-
historical times down to the Christian era; and it is in vain, therefore, that Spanish
orthodoxy, in efforts to affiliate its ancestry with some Genesiacal worthy, (confounding
the Celto-Iberes with the Iberians of Asia,) should claim^ T u b a l as progenitor of
Spaniards.
“ The identity of Thobel, or Tubal, with the Georgians,” holds Dubois, whilst
substantiating Bochart, “ is nowadays well recognized; because Flavius Josephus
expressly says, that Tubal represented the Iberians of his time, the Iberians of Pliny,
of Strabo, of Procopius, who are the Georgians of * our day. The transition between
Tubal and Iberia is the Tibareni of Herodotus. This name has never been, among the
Georgians themselves, that of the nation; they give themselves the generic name of
Karthles: but it has remained in their capital Tbelissi, our Tiflis.” The root wep, over,
I ultra,’ probably underlies T-ibar-eni, and its Hebraicized form of TiuBaL; as well in
the Hispanian Iberes, as in the Caucasian Iberians — both being a “ people beyond. 58^-
—MSK — ‘ M e s h e c h . ’
Indo-Germanic. Not from the Hebrew, ‘ drawn with force,’ &c.
Erroneously substituted for the Shemite Mash (in 1 Ohron. 1. 17), and confounded
with the Arabian Meseq (in Psalm cxx.), by the forty-seven translators of King James’s
version; mere analogy of sound has led some commentators to behold in M e s h e c h the
parent of the Muscovites, incarnated founder of the city of Moscow ! At the same time
that the Arabic version transcribes Khorassdn!
As above stated, “ Tubal and Meshech” were deemed cognate nations by the writer
of Xth Genesis and by Ezekiel; confirmed by Herodotus — Mocr*;™* ptv Kai TiBaprjvovs;
and the concurrent testimony of Mela, Pliny, Stephanus, and Procopius, places the
Moo-yoi, or Meo%oi, on the Moschian range, adjacent to Iberia, (Tubal,) Armenia, and the
Colchide, between the Black and Caspian seas; still called Mesidji-ddgh, or ‘ Meshech-
mountains,’ by the recent Turks. The Misek of Rawlinson’s cuneatic inscriptions ?
More ancient than classical, Hebraical, Assyrian, or other extant annals, is the name
of M e s h e c h . Early as the age of Ramses II., in the fourteenth — fifteenth century
b . c., or prior to the fugacious era of Moses, (even supposing the Xth chapter of Genesis
to proceed from his individuality,) the Maasu, [Masii, Moschii,] whose cognomen
is still preserved in “ Mons Masius ” of the Taurus chain, are chronicled on Egyptian
papyri, inscribed in days contemporary with Ramses’s reign.
* Meskhes ’ is the Georgian appellative for the people of Moskhike, or Moschic. They
were a mixed population of primitive Phrygians (Thargamosians) and Medes, on the
southern slope of Caucasus; who in classical geographies, as the Mosunicoi, Mosynceci>
Moschici, are always neighbors of the Colchians, the Tibareni, the Khalybes, &c.;
while Ezekiel, as above shown, groups together, in the land of Gog (i. e., Caucasus),
nations under the sway of the “ Prince of Rhos, Meshech, and Tubal;” that is, the
Araxians, the Meskhes, and the Iberians -^inhabitants of that mountainous region.
M e s h e c h and Moschi are identified.582
. — TiIRS — 1 Tiras.’
Indo-Germanic. Not hebraically, ‘ demolisher,’ &c..
Occurring but twice, no light can be gathered upon this appellative from other
Biblical sources than the context of Gen. x., and its repetition in 1 Chron. i. 5.
The Armenian historian, Moses Chorenensis, remarks —- “ Our antiquities agree in
regarding Tiras not as the son of Japheth, but as his grandson.”
* 8pa£, * Thracia,’ is unanimously reputed to be the ethnological synonyme of Thiras ;