JAPHETH (Hebrew Jephth, Japheth; Septuagint: 'Iô-ôôô). — Son of Noah, younger than Shem (Gen 10:21, Heb.) and older than Ham (Gen 9:24), progenitor of the peoples to the west and north of Palestine (Gen 10:2–5), including the Cimmerians (Gomer), the Medes (Madai), the Greeks or Ionians (cf. JAVAN). Yet it is customary to trace the entire Aryo-European stock to Japheth.
The outstanding episode associated with his name is the paternal blessing bestowed upon him and Shem on the occasion of the incident that gave the two brothers an opportunity to show their reverence for their father Noah: “God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant” (Gen 9:27). In this is seen a prophecy of the demographic and civil expansion of the Aryo-Europeans, coupled at the same time with their religious subordination to the Semites, from whom they received Christianity.
Some comparatists in ethnology and literature admit a connection between the biblical Japheth and the Greek Iapetus (‘Ιαπτός’), who, through Prometheus and Deucalion (cf. Hesiod, Works and Days 5.50), shares with Japheth a link to a universal flood.