Noah's Drunkenness, painting byJames Tissot (between 1896 and 1902),Jewish Museum (Manhattan, New York). The painting depictsNoah lying in his tent;Shem (intyrian purple) and Japheth (in blue) are holding up the cloak with their back to Noah;Ham is standing to the side.
Japheth first appears in theHebrew Bible as one of the three sons of Noah, saved fromthe Flood through theArk.[5] In theBook of Genesis, they are always in the order "Shem, Ham, and Japheth" when all three are listed.[6][7] Genesis 9:24 callsHam the youngest,[7] and Genesis 10:21 refers ambiguously to Shem as "brother of Japheth the elder", which could mean that either is the eldest.[8] Most modern writers accept Shem–Ham–Japheth as reflecting their birth order, but this is not always the case: Moses and Rachel also appear at the head of such lists despite explicit descriptions of them as younger siblings.[9] However, Japheth is considered to have been the eldest son of Noah inRabbinic literature.[5]
Following the Flood, Japheth is featured in the story ofNoah's drunkenness.[5] Ham sees Noah drunk and naked in his tent and tells his brothers, who then cover their father with a cloak while avoiding the sight;when Noah awakes he curses Canaan, the son of Ham, and blesses Shem and Japheth:[5] "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem andmay Canaan be his slave; and may God enlarge Japheth and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave!"[10] Chapter 10 of Genesis, theTable of Nations, describes how earth was populated by the sons of Noah following the Flood, beginning with the descendants of Japheth:
From the 19th century until the late 20th century, it was usual to see Japheth as a reference to thePhilistines, who shared dominion over Canaan during the pre-monarchic andearly monarchic period of Israel and Judah.[14] This view accorded with the understanding of the origin of the Book of Genesis, which was seen as having been composed in stages beginning with the time ofKingSolomon, when the Philistines still existed (they vanished from history after theAssyrianconquest of Canaan). However, Genesis 10:14 identifies their ancestor asHam rather than Japheth.[11]
Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons: they inhabited so, that, beginning at the mountainsTaurus andAmanus, they proceeded along Asia, as far as the riverTanais (Don), and along Europe toCadiz; and settling themselves on the lands which they light upon, which none had inhabited before, they called the nations by their own names.
TheSefer haYashar ("Book of Jasher"), written byTalmudicrabbis in the 17th century, attributed some new names for Japheth's grandchildren which are not found in the Hebrew Bible, and provided a much moredetailed genealogy. In the Jewish tradition,Abraham's wifeKeturah is sometimes considered a descendant of Japheth.[15]
In the 7th century AD, Hispano–Romanarchbishop and scholarIsidore of Seville wrote his noted encyclopedic-historical treatise titledEtymologiae, in which he traces the origins of most of theEuropean peoples back to Japheth.[16][17] Scholars in almost every European nation continued to repeat and develop Isidore of Seville's assertion of descent from Noah through Japheth into the 19th century.[4]
...they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. (II.ii 117-18)
TheGeorgian historian and linguistIvane Javakhishvili associated Japheth's sons with certain ancient tribes, calledTubals (Tabals, in Greek:Tibarenoi) andMeshechs (Meshekhs/Mosokhs, in Greek:Moschoi), who claimed to represent non-Indo-European and non-Semitic, possibly "Proto-Iberian" tribes that inhabitedAnatolia during the3rd-1st millennia BC.[3]
In the Islamic tradition, he is usually regarded as the ancestor of theGog and Magog tribes. Islamic tradition also tends to identify the descendants of Japheth as including theTurks,Khazars,Chinese,Mongols, andSlavs.[19][22] According toAbū'l-Ghāzī who wrote the 17th-century ethnographic treatiseShajara-i Tarākima ("Genealogy of the Turkmen"), the descendants ofHam went toAfrica,Shem toIran, and Japheth went to the banks of theItil andYaik rivers, and had eight sons named Turk, Khazar, Saqlab, Rus, Ming, Chin, Kemeri, and Tarikh. As Japheth was dying he established Turk, his firstborn son, as his successor.[citation needed]
According to the 18th-centuryHui Muslim writerLiu Zhi, after Noah's flood, Japheth inheritedChina as the eastern portion of the Earth, while Shem inheritedArabia as the middle portion, and Ham inheritedEurope as the western portion.[22] Some Muslim traditions narrated that 36 languages of the world could be traced back to Japheth.[19]
Japheth is a major character in the second act ofStephen Schwartz's musical,Children of Eden. In this rendition, Japheth has fallen in love with the family servant, Yonah (created entirely for the show). He wants to bring her onto the ark to allow her to survive the flood, but Noah forbids this as Father (God) is trying to wipe the world free of those descended fromCain. Yonah is descended from Cain, despite her good heart and love from the family. Japheth secretly brings her aboard, and she is eventually discovered by Ham and Shem. Japheth defends her from Noah and is about to kill Shem in his rage. Yonah stops and calms him, and Noah decides to let her stay. The flood passes and the brothers all depart for different regions to populate the world, but Japheth and Yonah decide they want to search forEden. Noah blesses their journey by passing the staff ofAdam to Japheth. Smaller casts of the show usually have the actor who portrays Cain to also portray Japheth.
^Leyser, Karl (1994).Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries.A & C Black. p. 5.ISBN9781852850135. Retrieved10 August 2019.Already in Isidore of Seville they were the founders of towns and regions in Europe, Asia and Africa.14 The whole human race must be descended from them and they, Shem, Ham and Japheth therefore divided the world between them. Europe was Japheth's share, and his numerous offspring and their descendants in turn were the ancestors of all the greater European peoples: Franks, Latins, Alemans and Britains, to name but some.
