JAPHETH, a son of Noah and progenitor of the branch of the human race called Japhetic, born when his father had attained his 500th year (Gen. v, 32). For his act of filial respect to his father (Gen. ix, 23-27) he received the latter's blessing and promise of future enlarge ment, when his descendants would extend over the world, with Canaan his as well as Shem's servant. Married before the Flood, he and his wife were saved in the Ark. The birth of his seven sons occurred after the Deluge (x, 1). The name has been variously explained. Ac cording to Gen. ix, 27, it is derived from an Aramaic root, signifying exnand,o in allusion to the wide expansion of Japheth's descendants in the west of Europe and north of Asia, including Armenians, Medes, Greeks, Thracians, etc. Others trace it to the root ((fair," in reference to the light complexions of his posterity. The former derivation has most in its favor. Arab legend invests Japheth with
wondrous powers (Weil, Leg.' viii, 46) and mentions 11 of his sons as founders of as many Asiatic nations. But the gift of imagination was not given to rabbinical and Mohammedan writers alone. Some more modern authors seek to identify Japheth with the Iapetos of Greek fable (Margoliouth in Hasting's (Dict. Bible)), whose wife, Asia, bore Prometheus, civilization's founder. The word, too, has been loosely employed by some philologists in the term Japhetic or Indo European languages, in contradistinction to Semitic and Hamitic. The homiletical tenden cies of the rabbis are exemplified in the Midrashic comment on Gen. ix, 1, when God blessed Noah and his sons. In blessing Japheth He promised that all of his sons should be white and gave as their portion deserts and fields. (Pirke R. El. xxiv).