Chittim

Chittim — spelled Kittim throughout the UPDV — is a coastland-and-island people of the eastern Mediterranean, traced in the Table of Nations to a son of Javan and named again in oracles of Tyre, Sidon, and the king of the north. The name attaches both to a specific Cypriot port and, by extension, to the wider Aegean and western maritime world; in the Maccabean book it stands behind Alexander of Macedon's home-country.

Descendants of Javan

The earliest UPDV mention of Kittim is in the Table of Nations, where it appears in the Javan line of the Japhethite genealogy: "And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim" (Gen 10:4). The four-name list groups Kittim with Elishah, Tarshish, and Rodanim — coastland and seafaring peoples — and routes Kittim's origin through Javan, the genealogical head of the Greek-speaking maritime world.

Mediterranean Coastlands and Isles

Kittim recurs in the prophets as a maritime locale across the sea from Phoenicia. In the burden of Tyre, Kittim is the source from which the news of Tyre's destruction reaches the returning ships of Tarshish: "The burden of Tyre. Howl, you⁺ ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no access: from the land of Kittim it is revealed to them" (Isa 23:1). The "from the land of Kittim it is revealed" clause locates Kittim as the first stop where the news of the city's fall lands on the Tarshish-fleet's homeward route.

A few verses later in the same oracle, Kittim is named as the place to which the oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon is told to flee — and where she will still find no rest: "And he said, You will no more rejoice, O you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon: arise, pass over to Kittim; even there you will have no rest" (Isa 23:12). The "arise, pass over to Kittim" command makes Kittim the obvious refuge across the water from Sidon, while the "even there you will have no rest" clause cancels the refuge and extends the judgment beyond the Phoenician shore.

Jeremiah's indictment of covenant-faithlessness sends his hearers westward to Kittim and eastward to Kedar to test whether any other nation has so changed its gods: "For pass over to the isles of Kittim, and see; and send to Kedar, and consider diligently; and see if there has been such a thing" (Jer 2:10). The "isles of Kittim" phrase fixes Kittim as the western pole of the comparison; Kedar — the Arabian desert tribe — supplies the eastern pole; together they bracket the known nations.

A Source of Maritime Goods

Ezekiel's lament over Tyre folds Kittim into the city's trade-inventory as the source of the cypress-wood used for the inlaid ivory benches of her ships: "Of the oaks of Bashan they have made your oars; they have made your benches of ivory inlaid in cypress-wood, from the isles of Kittim" (Eze 27:6). The "from the isles of Kittim" qualifier attaches Kittim to the cypress-wood supply, fitting Kittim into the same wide-sea trade network that draws oak from Bashan and ivory from elsewhere.

Oracles Naming Kittim Ships

Two prophetic passages name Kittim as the agency of judgment against another power. Balaam's fourth oracle closes with the prophecy of an unnamed sea-power that will harass Asshur and Eber and be itself doomed: "Those who go out from the coast of Kittim, And they will afflict Asshur, and will afflict Eber; And he also will perish forever" (Num 24:24). The "those who go out from the coast of Kittim" subject-phrase identifies the coming afflicter as a Kittim-coast force; the "afflict Asshur, and will afflict Eber" clause sets two named targets — Assyria and the Hebrew line — and the "he also will perish forever" verdict dooms the afflicter in turn.

Daniel's vision of the king of the north uses the same Kittim-ships motif as the agency that breaks the king's southern campaign: "For ships of Kittim will come against him; therefore he will be grieved, and will return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and will do [his pleasure]: he will even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant" (Dan 11:30). The "ships of Kittim will come against him" clause forces the king's retreat; the "indignation against the holy covenant" and the "regard to those who forsake the holy covenant" clauses redirect his anger toward the covenant-people on the way home.

The Land of Alexander

In the opening verse of 1 Maccabees, Kittim is named as Alexander the Great's home-country in the formula that introduces the Greek conquest of the Persian east: "Now it came to pass that Alexander the [son] of Philip the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Kittim, overthrew Darius king of the Persians and Medes, and reigned in his place, first over Greece" (1Ma 1:1). The "Alexander the [son] of Philip the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Kittim" subject-phrase identifies Macedon — and the wider Greek western-Mediterranean world — as the Kittim of the Maccabean writer's day; the "overthrew Darius king of the Persians and Medes, and reigned in his place, first over Greece" clause ties the Kittim-name into the Alexander-conquest narrative that frames the rest of the Maccabean book.