shish ;* and the ships which Jehoshaphat ordered to be built, ships of Tarshish.† The fleets of these princes were stationed at Eziongaber, on the Red Sea; and by consequence, they neither navigated the sea of Tarshish or Mediterranean, nor traded to Tartessus or any of the settlements formed by that people, but to some port in Africa or the East Indies; the only countries that produced the commodities, ivory, apes, and peacocks, with which they returned to Palestine, after a coasting voyage of three years. To the west of Tarshish, and adjoining to it, lay the settlements of Kittim or Cittim, the descendants of Kittim or Ceth, the son of Javan. In this quarter, according to Ptolemy, was the country of Cetis; and Homer mentions in the Odyssey, a people whom he calls Cetii, who are supposed to derive their name from the river Cetius, which flowed through their country.‡ In perfect agreement with Homer, the Seventy interpreters render Kittim by Kŋriol, Ketii or Cetii; and therefore, it is probable, that both people and river took their name from Kittim, the son of Javan. 6 Colonies of the same people crossed the Hellespont and settled in Greece. In the book of Numbers it is predicted, ships shall come from the coasts of Chittim by which the Greeks and Seleucidæ who chastised the Hebrews and Assyrians, are generally understood. In the first book of Maccabees, the king of Macedon is called the king of Shittim. Several bodies of this nation settled in Cilicia; on account of which, it is called in Scripture the land of Chittim, § and because from that country Alexander marched to the memorable siege of Tyre.|| The posterity of Ceth, or the Kittim, seem to have colonized the neighbouring isles of Crete and Cyprus ; for Ptolemy mentions the city of Cyteum in the for * 1 Kings x. 22. Lib. xi. line 520. 1 Kings xxii. 48. § Isaiah xxiii. 1. John Edward's Perfection of Scripture, vol. iii. p. 70. mer, and Strabo the city of Citium in the latter: and Josephus relates that Cetios was the Greek name of Cyprus itself; from whence, says he, all the Greek isles were called Chittim.* " It is evident from the following passage in Daniel, that Italy was indebted for her inhabitants to the same people: The ships of Chittim shall come against thee.' The Roman fleets are certainly meant in this prediction, but they might sail to the attack of Antiochus from Cilicia, in whose harbours they were commonly stationed to command the Mediterranean. The most probable opinion, and one that puts an end to the disputes of commentators and critics on that passage of the prophet, is, that colonies of this people were settled in both Greece and Italy, and consequently, whether the Roman fleet sailed from the Tiber, or some harbour in Cilicia, it might still be truly called the ships of Chittim.‡ On the western coast of Asia Minor, inclining to the south, were the original settlements of Elisha, another of the sons of Javan. We can discover some traces of his name in the Æloes or Æolians, who were anciently settled in the neighbourhood, and who are expressly affirmed by Josephus to have been descended from Elisha. From the opposite coast of Asia Minor, Elisha, probably in the train of his father Javan, passed over into Greece, and finally settled in that country. From Javan the country of Ionia certainly took its name; and the Iones or Iaones of Homer and Strabo derived their origin. Josephus asserts, that from Javan came Ionia, and all the Greeks; and Greece is expressly called Javan in the prophecies of Daniel.|| The sons of Elisha seem to have occupied in their + Daniel xi. 30. * Antiquities, lib. i. c. 6, sec. 1. Bochart. Phal. lib. iii. c. 5, p. 157, and Michaelis Spicil. p. 103. § Iliad, lib. xiii. line 685; lib. ix. p. 272. Dan. x. 20, and xi. 2; Antiq. lib. i. c. 6, sec. 1; see also Wells' Hist. Geog. vol. i. p. 70; Bochart. Phal. lib. iii. c. 3, p. 153, and c. 4, p. 155. G. G passage from Asia to Europe, the principal isles of the Grecian Archipelago; for the prophet Ezekiel calls them the isles of Elisha. That he alludes to these isles, is evident from what he says of the blue and purple fabrics which constituted the principal part of their trade with Tyre; for we know that they were long celebrated for the richness and brilliancy of their blue and purple dyes.* The Greeks were reminded of their descent from Elisha by the name 'EXλas, which for many generations belonged to all the nations of Greece. They could trace their origin also, in the city and province of Elis in the Peloponnesus, in the city of Eleusis in Attica, and in the river Elissus or Ilissus in the same province; and as many believe, in the Elysian fields, that were so long one of the favourite themes of their enraptured bards. 'On the same western coast, south of the family of Elisha,' says Dr Wells, ' may the family of Dodanim be supposed to have first planted itself. For there we find in ancient writers a country called Doris, which may not improbably be derived originally from Dodanim; especially if this be a plural, as the termination seems to import; and so the singular was Dodan, which being softened into Doran, the Greeks might easily frame from thence Dorus, whom they affect to have been the father of the Dorians.' This writer thinks that the carelessness of some transcriber, by changing the Daleth into Resh, than which nothing can be more easy, converted the Hebrew word Dodanim into Doranim, which the Greeks transformed into Doros or Dores: and consequently the Dores among the Greeks, mentioned by Moses under the name Dodanim, being descended from Javan, must have had their first settlement in Doris, a province of the Lesser Asia.† * Elis or Hellas, was a port in Peloponnesus, whence some of the shells were obtained that formed the dye.- Wilde, vol. ii. p. 113.-Ed. † Wells' Hist. Geog. vol. i. p. 71, But if the Greeks converted Dodanim into Dores, it is natural to suppose they would never return to the original term, nor use any word derived from it. How then are we to account for the manifest traces of this term in Epirus, and part of Peloponnesus? The city of Dodona in Epirus, where Jupiter had one of his most celebrated oracles, and from whence he borrowed one of his designations, Dodonæan Jove, bears indubitable marks of the ancient and primitive Dodanim. It is not improbable, that Dodanim and his sons, after leaving Babel, or the interamnian region in a part of which it was built, remained some time in Asia Minor, and perhaps formed a permanent establishment in the neighbourhood of his brother Elisha; but they seem to have left no certain traces behind them, till they finally settled in Epirus and the Peloponnese.* The Dorians, it is probable, were originally a Phonician colony, that settled in Greece, in ages long posterior to the confusion of tongues. We find in that country the maritime city Dora, or Doro, in the neighbourhood of Carmel, between Ptolemais and Cesarea. Dores appears, from the books of Joshua and Judges, to have been a royal city, and one of the most ancient in Phoenicia. It was so strongly fortified, that the tribe of Manasseh to whose lot it fell, were not able to take it, and expel the inhabitants; though they forced them at last to pay them a yearly tribute. The original inhabitants of this ancient and powerful city, Pausanias expressly calls Dorians; and since Cadmus * The Dodanim, mentioned, Genesis x. 4, as the immediate descendants of Javan, are, by the Septuagint translators, denominated 'Podiol, or Rhodians. The Samaritan Pentateuch also agrees with the Septuagint in this rendering. Jerome, Eusebius, and Isidore coincide in the opinion, that the first inhabitants of this island, after the flood, were the Dodanim or Rhodanim. Other learned authors assent to the reading of Rhodanim for Dodanim, but think it doubtful whether these were not the ancestors of the Gauls, who settled near the mouth of the Rhone, and in the vicinity of Marseilles, where a district and city were anciently known by the name Rhodænusia.-Bib. Keepsake, 1837.-Editor. and other Phoenicians settled in Greece, and introduced among its barbarous tribes the first rudiments of learning and civilization, it is extremely probable, that the Dorians of Greece derived their origin from that renowned city. From the nations of Gomer and Javan, by whom the countries of Europe were peopled, we now proceed to make a few remarks on the posterity of Tubal and Meshech. These nations are commonly mentioned together by Moses, and other inspired writers; from whence it may be reasonably concluded, that they occupied adjoining territories.* The first settlements of Meshech were contiguous to the nation of Gomer on the east, and situated in Cappadocia and Armenia. These were probably the same people whom the Greeks denominated Moschi, from Mosoch, as the name Meshech is read by the Seventy, and other interpreters, who were seated in these countries, and from whom the neighbouring ridge of hills undoubtedly took the name of the Moschic mountains.† Along the northern boundary of Meshech, extended the plantations of his brother Tubal, the father of the Albani, Chalybes, and Iberi, who, says the Jewish historian, were originally called Thobeli, from Tubal, the founder of their family. In this country, Ptolemy places the city Thabilaca, which is evidently derived from Tubal. In the opinion of Mede, the Alybe mentioned by Homer in his second Iliad, lay in this quarter, to which he traces the name of Albania, which, in succeeding ages, distinguished a part of Tubal's inheritance. Alybe he conceives to have been a name corrupted from Abyle, and this from Tabyle, an easy derivative from Tubal. In like manner, Bochart supposes the Tibareni, a people mentioned by old authors in this tract, to have derived their name from Tubal, *Bochart. Phal. lib. iii. c. 12, pp. 179, 180. |