The sons of Javan, that is, the descendants of Javan, takes up the names associated with Javan as a second generation. Nothing equivalent is said about the sons of Magog and Madai, nor about Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.

Elishah is mentioned in Ezek 27.7 as the source of the purple dye shipped to Tyre. In Akkadian and Hittite inscriptions it is equated with Cyprus, and in the Amarna letters the king of Elishah writes about the export of copper to the Egyptian king. The English word “copper” comes from the Greek word for Cyprus. Both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation retain Elishah. Note that Good News Translation translates Kittim as “Cyprus.” This may serve as a model for translators.

Tarshish is mentioned twenty-eight times in the Old Testament, and in a variety of contexts. It is spoken of as a far distant place in Jonah 1.3 and elsewhere; with reference to its ships and sailing in 1 Kgs 10.22 and elsewhere; and associated with fine silver in Jer 10.9. Some interpreters have identified Tarshish with Tartessos, a Phoenician colony in Spain. However, this is only a guess, and Speiser thinks the biblical name may refer to more than one place. Good News Translation translates it as “Spain.”

Kittim, a plural noun, refers to the people of kit in Phoenician inscriptions. “Kition” was an important Greek city on Cyprus (modern day Larnaka). It is natural that the Greek association with “Kition” would rank Kittim as a “son of Javan.” The name of the city became applied to the entire island of Cyprus.

Dodanim is also a plural noun. The reference is to the island of Rhodes lying just off the southwest coast of modern Turkey. As in the case of Kittim (Cyprus), there were many Greek inhabitants on Rhodes, which fixed the association with Javan (Greece) in the writer’s classification. Some Hebrew manuscripts have rodanim, as does the Hebrew text of 1 Chr 1.7. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project prefers “Rodanim” or “Rodanites.” This may be translated as “the people of Rhodes.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .