Gomer (Bible)
Encyclopedia
Gomer was the eldest son of Japheth
(and of the Japhetic
line), and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath
, and Togarmah
, according to the "Table of Nations" in the Hebrew Bible
, (Genesis 10).
The eponym
ous Gomer, "standing for the whole family," as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia
expressed it, is also mentioned in Book of Ezekiel
38:6 as the ally of Gog
, the chief of the land of Magog
.
In Islamic folklore, the Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
(c. 915) recounts a Persian tradition that Gomer lived to the age of 1000, noting that this record equalled that of Nimrod
, but was unsurpassed by anyone else mentioned in the Torah.
placed Gomer and the "Gomerites" in Anatolia
n Galatia
: "For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks
now call Galatia
ns, but were then called Gomerites." Galatia in fact takes its name from the ancient Gauls
(Celts) who settled there. However, the later Christian writer Hippolytus of Rome in c. 234 assigned Gomer as the ancestor of the Cappadocia
ns, neighbours of the Galatians. Jerome
(c. 390) and Isidore of Seville
(c. 600) followed Josephus' identification of Gomer with the Galatians, Gauls and Celts.
The Hebrew name Gomer is widely considered to refer to the Cimmerians
(Akkadian Gimirru, "complete"), who dwelt on the Eurasian Steppe
s and attacked Assyria
in the late 7th century BC. The Assyrians called them Gimmerai ; the Cimmerian king Teushpa was defeated by Assarhadon of Assyria sometime between 681 and 668 BC.
The Cimbri
were a tribe settled in Denmark ca. 200 BC, who were variously identified in ancient times as Cimmerian, Germanic or Celtic. In later times, some scholars connected them with the Welsh people
, and descendants of Gomer. Among the first authors to identify Gomer, the Cimmerians, and Cimbri, with the Welsh name for themselves, Cymri, was the English antiquarian William Camden
in his Britannia (first published in 1586). In his 1716 book Drych y Prif Oesoedd, Welsh
antiquary Theophilus Evans
also posited that the Welsh were descended from the Cimmerians and from Gomer; this was followed by a number of later writers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
This etymology is considered false by modern Celtic linguists, who follow the etymology proposed by Johann Kaspar Zeuss in 1853, which derives Cymry from the Brythonic word *Combrogos ("fellow countryman"). The name Gomer (as in the pen-name of 19th century editor and author Joseph Harris
, for instance) and its (modern) Welsh derivatives, such as Gomeraeg (as an alternative name for the Welsh language). According to William Spurrell and the Cymraeg language itself, G is the soft mutation of the hard C or K sound.
According to tractate Yoma
, in the Talmud
, Gomer is identified as the ancestor of the Gomermians, modern Germans.
In 1498 Annio da Viterbo published fragments known as Pseudo-Berossus, now considered a forgery, claiming that Babylonian records had shown that Comerus Gallus, i.e. Gomer son of Japheth, had first settled in Comera (now Italy
) in the 10th year of Nimrod
following the dispersion of peoples. In addition, Tuiscon, whom Pseudo-Berossus calls the fourth son of Noah, and says ruled first in Germany/Scythia, was identified by later historians (e.g. Johannes Aventinus
) as none other than Ashkenaz
, Gomer's son.
Some have identified the children of Ashkenaz with the Scythians (Assyrian Ishkuza). However, in Hebrew the word Askhenaz designates the region of middle Europe now known as Germany. It has been conjectured that the term in the original Hebrew was Ashkuz, but that it became Ashkenaz when the Hebrew letter waw
was accidentally miscopied as the similar-looking letter nun
at some early stage of the transmission. Irish
Genealogy traces itself to Ibath, son of Gomer (thought to be a form of Riphath).
Ancient Armenian
and Georgian
chronicles lists Togarmah as the ancestor of both people who originally inhabited the land between two Black
and Caspian Sea
s and between two inaccessible mountains, Mount Elbrus
and Mount Ararat
respectively.
According to Khazar records, Togarmah is regarded as the ancestor of the Turkic-speaking peoples.
Japheth
Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition...
(and of the Japhetic
Japhetic
Japhetic is a term that refers to the supposed descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. It corresponds to Semitic and Hamitic...
line), and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath
Riphath
Riphath - "a crusher", Gomer's second son , supposed by Josephus to have been the ancestor of the Paphlagonia. Pliny calls Riphath "Riphaci", and mentions a group of mountains named after him, the Riphaean range. Melo calls him "Riphaces", and Solinus "Piphlataci".Some Irish traditions say Riphath...
, and Togarmah
Togarmah
Togarmah third son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth, brother of Ashkenaz and Riphat...
, according to the "Table of Nations" in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
, (Genesis 10).
The eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
ous Gomer, "standing for the whole family," as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia
Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...
expressed it, is also mentioned in Book of Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
38:6 as the ally of Gog
Gog
Gog, Gogg or Gogs may refer to:Biblical:* Gog and MagogPeople:* Anikó Góg, Hungarian triathlete* Gog or "gogledd", a person from North Wales from the Welsh word for "north"...
, the chief of the land of Magog
Magog (Bible)
Magog, Hebrew מגוג, Greek Μαγωγ, [ ma'gog ], is the second of the seven sons of Japheth mentioned in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. It may represent Hebrew for "from Gog", though this is far from certain....
.
In Islamic folklore, the Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...
(c. 915) recounts a Persian tradition that Gomer lived to the age of 1000, noting that this record equalled that of Nimrod
Nimrod (king)
Nimrod is, according to the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the son of Cush and great-grandson of Noah and the king of Shinar. He is depicted in the Tanakh as a man of power in the earth, and a mighty hunter. Extra-Biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his...
, but was unsurpassed by anyone else mentioned in the Torah.
Traditional identifications
JosephusJosephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
placed Gomer and the "Gomerites" in Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
n Galatia
Galatia
Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...
: "For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
now call Galatia
Galatia
Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...
ns, but were then called Gomerites." Galatia in fact takes its name from the ancient Gauls
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
(Celts) who settled there. However, the later Christian writer Hippolytus of Rome in c. 234 assigned Gomer as the ancestor of the Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
ns, neighbours of the Galatians. Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
(c. 390) and Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
(c. 600) followed Josephus' identification of Gomer with the Galatians, Gauls and Celts.
The Hebrew name Gomer is widely considered to refer to the Cimmerians
Cimmerians
The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...
(Akkadian Gimirru, "complete"), who dwelt on the Eurasian Steppe
Eurasian Steppe
The Eurasian Steppe is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Biome. It stretches from Hungary to Mongolia...
s and attacked Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
in the late 7th century BC. The Assyrians called them Gimmerai ; the Cimmerian king Teushpa was defeated by Assarhadon of Assyria sometime between 681 and 668 BC.
The Cimbri
Cimbri
The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. The Cimbri were probably Germanic, though some believe them to be of Celtic origin...
were a tribe settled in Denmark ca. 200 BC, who were variously identified in ancient times as Cimmerian, Germanic or Celtic. In later times, some scholars connected them with the Welsh people
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
, and descendants of Gomer. Among the first authors to identify Gomer, the Cimmerians, and Cimbri, with the Welsh name for themselves, Cymri, was the English antiquarian William Camden
William Camden
William Camden was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and officer of arms. He wrote the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.- Early years :Camden was born in London...
in his Britannia (first published in 1586). In his 1716 book Drych y Prif Oesoedd, Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
antiquary Theophilus Evans
Theophilus Evans
Theophilus Evans was a Welsh clergyman and historian.Originally from Cardiganshire, Evans served curacies in Brecknockshire and incumbencies in both counties...
also posited that the Welsh were descended from the Cimmerians and from Gomer; this was followed by a number of later writers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
This etymology is considered false by modern Celtic linguists, who follow the etymology proposed by Johann Kaspar Zeuss in 1853, which derives Cymry from the Brythonic word *Combrogos ("fellow countryman"). The name Gomer (as in the pen-name of 19th century editor and author Joseph Harris
Joseph Harris (Gomer)
Joseph Harris was a Welsh Baptist minister, author, and journal editor. A Welsh language poet, he took the Biblical name of Gomer as his bardic name. On 1 January 1814 he launched the first Welsh-language weekly Seren Gomer in Swansea.Gomer was born on a farm in Wolf's Castle, Pembrokeshire...
, for instance) and its (modern) Welsh derivatives, such as Gomeraeg (as an alternative name for the Welsh language). According to William Spurrell and the Cymraeg language itself, G is the soft mutation of the hard C or K sound.
According to tractate Yoma
Yoma
Yoma is the fifth tractate of Seder Moed of the Mishnah and of the Talmud. It is concerned mainly with the laws of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, on which Jews atone for their sins from the previous year...
, in the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
, Gomer is identified as the ancestor of the Gomermians, modern Germans.
In 1498 Annio da Viterbo published fragments known as Pseudo-Berossus, now considered a forgery, claiming that Babylonian records had shown that Comerus Gallus, i.e. Gomer son of Japheth, had first settled in Comera (now Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
) in the 10th year of Nimrod
Nimrod
Nimrod means "Hunter"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations; an eponym for the city of Nimrud.Nimrod can also refer to any of the following:*Nimród Antal, a director...
following the dispersion of peoples. In addition, Tuiscon, whom Pseudo-Berossus calls the fourth son of Noah, and says ruled first in Germany/Scythia, was identified by later historians (e.g. Johannes Aventinus
Johannes Aventinus
Johannes Aventinus was a Bavarian historian and philologist. He wrote Annals of Bavaria, a valuable record of the early history of Germany...
) as none other than Ashkenaz
Ashkenaz
In the Bible, Ashkenaz is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah , thereby a Japhetic descendant of Noah. A kingdom of Ashkenaz is called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon In the Bible, Ashkenaz (Heb. אַשְׁכֲּנָז) is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah (Gen....
, Gomer's son.
Gomer's descendants
Three sons of Gomer are mentioned in Genesis 10, namely- AshkenazAshkenazIn the Bible, Ashkenaz is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah , thereby a Japhetic descendant of Noah. A kingdom of Ashkenaz is called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon In the Bible, Ashkenaz (Heb. אַשְׁכֲּנָז) is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah (Gen....
- RiphathRiphathRiphath - "a crusher", Gomer's second son , supposed by Josephus to have been the ancestor of the Paphlagonia. Pliny calls Riphath "Riphaci", and mentions a group of mountains named after him, the Riphaean range. Melo calls him "Riphaces", and Solinus "Piphlataci".Some Irish traditions say Riphath...
(spelled Diphath in I ChroniclesBooks of ChroniclesThe Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim . Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings...
) - TogarmahTogarmahTogarmah third son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth, brother of Ashkenaz and Riphat...
Some have identified the children of Ashkenaz with the Scythians (Assyrian Ishkuza). However, in Hebrew the word Askhenaz designates the region of middle Europe now known as Germany. It has been conjectured that the term in the original Hebrew was Ashkuz, but that it became Ashkenaz when the Hebrew letter waw
Waw (letter)
Waw is the sixth letter of the Northwest Semitic family of scripts, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic ....
was accidentally miscopied as the similar-looking letter nun
Nun (letter)
Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . It is the third letter in Thaana , pronounced as "noonu"...
at some early stage of the transmission. Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
Genealogy traces itself to Ibath, son of Gomer (thought to be a form of Riphath).
Ancient Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
and Georgian
Georgian people
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
chronicles lists Togarmah as the ancestor of both people who originally inhabited the land between two Black
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
and Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
s and between two inaccessible mountains, Mount Elbrus
Mount Elbrus
Mount Elbrus is an inactive volcano located in the western Caucasus mountain range, in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia, near the border of Georgia. Mt. Elbrus's peak is the highest in the Caucasus, in Russia...
and Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat and Lesser Ararat .The Ararat massif is about in diameter...
respectively.
According to Khazar records, Togarmah is regarded as the ancestor of the Turkic-speaking peoples.