Who was Japheth in the Bible?

One of three sons of Noah. He was the father of Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. From these names it has been gathered that the descendants of Japheth spread over the whole of Europe and a great part of northern Asia. Noah prophesied of him, "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." He is not here brought into relationship with God, as Shem is: enlargement on the earth is what is predicted, and this has been manifestly fulfilled. Gen. 5:32; Gen. 6:10; Gen. 7:13; Gen. 9:18, 23, 27; Gen. 10:1-2, 21; 1 Chr. 1:4-5.

Ham (black) is not mentioned in the curse, but the son of Ham, Canaan (the merchantman). Ham's deed revealed the unbelieving condition of his heart, while Shem's and Japheth's action manifest divine grace in covering up the nakedness. God's eye beheld Canaan and his subsequent career in his descendants. He inherits the curse. How literally it was carried out! Shem, meaning "name," becomes the family in which Jehovah, the Name, is to be revealed. Jehovah is the God of Shem. Soon we shall see a son of Shem, Abram, and his seed becoming the depository of Jehovah's revelation. Later Jehovah speaks and reveals His name by which He wishes to be known forever to another son of Shem, Moses. "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you; this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations" (Ex. 3:15). He does not call Himself "the God of Japheth" but "the God of Shem." Shem's supremacy is here indicated. It is a far-reaching prophecy. Japheth means "expansion." His sons are Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras, and the sons of Gomer and Javan are mentioned in the next chapter. They expanded and Japheth dwells in the tents of Shem, partakes of Shem's blessing and responsibility. Some take "He shall dwell in the tents of Shem," the "he" as referring to God, but this is incorrect. It means Japheth and reminds us of the parable of the olive tree in Romans 11. Shem's blessing consisted (1) In being the carrier of the Name, Jehovah. (2) In controlling Canaan and being the master over him. (3) The giving shelter to Japheth and let him be sharer of the blessing. It is the germ of all following prophecy and we wait still for its end fulfilment.

When we reach Noah, the tenth from Adam, the history again expands. To begin with, his father Lamech at his birth named him with prophetic insight. He acknowledged that the earth was under the curse of God and anticipated that his son would bring rest or comfort. This he did by building the ark at the command of God, thus carrying a few, that is, eight souls, into a new world. He lived apparently to the great age of 500 years before begetting his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Shem is mentioned first, not because he was the oldest but because his was the line in which faith was preserved. He was apparently the second son, for Ham is called the "younger son" (Genesis 9:24), and Japheth is called "the elder" (Genesis 10:21).

“Blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall be His servant.” Of Shem's race came Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and God was not ashamed to be called their God. He brought them into covenant relationship to Himself, and will yet fulfil all the promises made to the fathers to their children.

“God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem: and Canaan shall be His servant.” From Japhet have sprung all the European nations who have spread out to the ends of the earth, and have entered into the favour that belonged to Israel, who have been cut out of it for the time being because of their unbelief, as Romans 11 shows.

We ought to notice in this connection that when the gospel first moved out from Jerusalem and the land of the Jews, a man from each of these three great divisions of humanity was saved by it and brought into the unity of the kingdom of God and the body of Christ, showing how the gospel obliterates all distinctions of race and nation. They were the Ethiopian Eunuch, the Hamite (Acts 8); Saul of Tarsus, the Shemite (chapter 9), and Cornelius the centurion, the Japhethite (chapter 10).

Of Japheth — the Celtic family (Gomer), the tribes to the north of the Caucasus (Magog), Medes, Greeks, Tibareni, Moschi and Thracians — generally the Indo-Europeans.

Noah's prophecy, on awaking from his wine, passes over Ham — the indefinite multitude of mere natural men, — to fix upon Canaan its denunciation. Shem and Japheth seem to give us in their various blessing two tendencies which are apt to be sundered and should not be. Shem's is the recipient contemplative life, whose danger is, to run into the mystical: Japheth's is the energetic, practical life, which, in its one-sidedness, tends to divorce itself from faith. In the blessing of Shem, it is Shem's God, Jehovah, who is blessed, as it is indeed the highest blessedness of faith that it has God for its portion and its praise; while Japheth's blessing is in enlargement and dwelling in the tents of Shem, for the practical life finds its true home in faith alone, and true service is but worship in its outflow among men.

In Genesis 6:10, we find the names of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and turning to Genesis 10:1 and 1 Chronicles 1:4, we find in each chapter the same names in the same order; yet in the light of Genesis 9:24 and 10:21, we gather that the actual order of their birth was Japheth, Shem and Ham. Shem being, however, the one specially chosen in the sovereignty of God, his name is placed first.

Tarshish was the second son of Javan, as Javan was the fourth son of Japheth, the typical Gentile by whose seed the isles of the Gentiles were divided. Javan is thus in character the wanderer from God, as the Gentile plainly was. There is not in him the positive opposition that we find in the sons of Ham, and in Noah's prophecy the two are widely distinguished in God's ways of dealing with them. "God will make room for Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem" — a partaker of the revelation of which Shem is the depositary. But in the meanwhile he is away from God, busy and making room for himself. He spreads abroad unfettered; but Javan, whose name in its root-meaning gives the thought of "boiling," "bubbling," or "fermentation," seems akin to yayin, "wine." Greece, which Javan confessedly represents, was the land of wine, given over to the worship of Bacchus; and in its light-heartedness, its poetry, and even its philosophy, bears witness of a kind of intoxication of spirit which would answer to the name.

The King is before the mind of the Spirit, Who hastens onward and with seven names covers the whole time from the creation to the deluge, a space computed to be nearly one thousand seven hundred years. In all that time only two men are singled out for their faith till we come to Noah, Abel and Enoch of the old world; Noah links the old and the new, as it were, the last of the old and the first of the new, though that prime place he could not keep in honour. In Noah's sons we have the heads of the three great divisions of the human race, with characteristics so different as developed in this present day that infidels dare to deny their common blood (Acts 17:26). In Genesis, as here, the order is, Shem, Ham and Japheth; not that we can assume this to be the order of birth, for in Gen. 10:21, where Shem and Japheth are mentioned, Japheth is called the elder, and it is a question with some whether "younger son" in Gen. 9:24 refers to Ham or to his son Canaan. Be this as it may, another order than the natural is before us, for the natural order, i.e., priority of birth, is constantly departed from when it traverses the order of grace and of God's purpose of blessing; and if Japheth and his descendants are noticed first, it is but briefly and then dismissed. That which brings the children of Ham into prominence here is that they are so often in collision with the people of whom came The King.

From Gen. 10, we learn that the isles of the Gentiles are the portion of Japheth; but, if far from being prominent in the beginning, these names re-appear in the prophetic record of the close of this world's history (see Ezek. 27 — 39 and Rev. 20, where the names of Japheth's sons recur). They spread over their allotted portion of the earth noiselessly, hidden by their own insignificancy and in the darkness of their idolatry, unnoticed in the history of God's dealings with nations who at the first interfered with Israel (for that which makes any Gentile prominent is his having to do with Israel, whether with them or against them), but to come out in fearful prominence at the close, when the Son of David is about to make good His title to the sovereignty of the world. The sons of Ham have had their day of supremacy. The race of Japheth is now dominant, and will be a little longer. That of Shem is yet to come, when, in the person of the Jew, the glory of that race shall be manifest to all. But the Anointed of Israel must first come; for if the earth is to be blessed through the Jew, the Jew will owe his greatness to the presence of Him to Whom these genealogies lead. Until then the pride and haughtiness of Japheth will increase, and when it has reached its climax will be suddenly destroyed; for are not the first Beast, the future Emperor of the West, and the King of the North, all of the proud and domineering race of Japheth?

This sad episode became the occasion of revealing the character of Ham, and apparently also of Canaan the son of Ham. Shem and Japheth acted with due respect to Noah, both as their father and as the ruler in the new conditions, whereas it was absent with Ham. Disrespect of authority, whether parental or governmental, since both were originally instituted of God, is a very grave sin. It leads ultimately to the setting aside of the authority of God, who instituted it. It is only as we give these considerations due weight in our minds, that we see how justified was the solemn curse pronounced by Noah, when he knew what had happened.