Gomer

The name Gomer attaches to three distinct figures in Scripture: a son of Japheth at the head of one of the seventy nations after the flood, the people descended from him who muster with Gog in Ezekiel's vision, and the woman whom Yahweh commands the prophet Hosea to take as his wife. The shared name binds the genealogical, geopolitical, and prophetic strands that meet under this single entry.

Son of Japheth

Gomer stands first in the list of Japheth's sons in the Table of Nations: "The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras" (Gen 10:2). The Chronicler repeats the line word for word: "The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras" (1Ch 1:5). The genealogy then carries forward into a second generation through Gomer's own sons. Genesis names them as "Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah" (Gen 10:3); the Chronicles parallel reproduces the list with one variant in the middle name: "Ashkenaz, and Diphath, and Togarmah" (1Ch 1:6).

A People Descended from Gomer

By the time of Ezekiel, "Gomer" no longer designates the patriarch but the people that bear his name, and they appear among the northern coalition gathered around Gog. In the muster Yahweh enumerates through the prophet, Gomer is paired with the house of Togarmah — Gomer's own grandson by the genealogy above — and both are placed at the far edge of the known world: "Gomer, and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with you" (Eze 38:6). The genealogical line of Gen 10 has become, in the prophetic frame, a tribe and a military force.

Wife of Hosea

The third Gomer is unrelated by descent and stands in the prophetic narrative rather than the genealogies. When Yahweh commissions Hosea's symbolic marriage, the prophet obeys without delay and the woman is named: "So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she became pregnant, and bore him a son" (Hos 1:3). Gomer here is identified by patronym — daughter of Diblaim — and her conception of a son sets up the sign-children whose names will carry the rest of the chapter's oracle.