יָוָן
Javan
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Javan’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H3120 appears in the Book of Ezekiel — 2 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 27:13 יָוָ֤ן n Proper Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were your traffickers; they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass for your merchandise.
- Ezekiel 27:19 וְ/יָוָן֙ conj + n Proper Vedan and Javan traded with yarn for your wares: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were among your merchandise.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
“Javan” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name יון (Yâvân). Scripture first uses it in Genesis 10:2. With 11 verses in 6 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Daniel, which alone accounts for 27% of its uses. See 11-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3120 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Daniel 3 verses 27%
- Genesis 2 verses 18%
- 1 Chronicles 2 verses 18%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 11 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 45%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 36%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 18%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Javan 7×, Grecia 3×
- American Standard Version†: Javan 7×, Greece 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Javan 6×, Greece 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Javan 7×, Greece 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3120 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3120 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3120 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3120 across 12† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 0 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
יון I loc. whence wine, so Co Ez 27
יון II Ionia(ns), Greece (Gk. Ἰάονες (i.e. orig. Ἰάϝονες), v. also 𝔊 infr.
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
I. n.pr.loc. whence wine, so Co Ez 27:19 for MT וְדָן וְיָוָן; cf. Assyrian wine of Aranabanim.
I. n.pr.gent. Ionia(ns), Greece (Gk. Ἰάονες (i.e. orig. Ἰάϝονες), v. also 𝔊 infr.; OPers. Yauna SpiegAPK 237; Assyrian Iamanu (Iavanu) DlPa 248 ff. COTGloss; Egyptian Ye-van-(n)a, v. WMM369 f. cf. also 24 ff.; v. especially on this word StaDe Populo Javan 1880)—Ionians, as traders Ez 27:13, 𝔊 Ἑλλάς (named with תּוּבַל, מֶשֶׁךְ; in v 12 תַּרְשִׁישׁ, in v 14 תּוֹגַרְמָה); cf. יְוָנִי (adj. gent.) infr.; as distant, Is 66:19, 𝔊 Ἑλλάς (with תַּרְשִׁישׁ, פּוּל, לוּד, תּוּבַל, and הָאִיִּים הָֽרְחֹקִים; list to be emended from 𝔊 Staib. 5 ff.); called ‘son’ of Japhet Gn 10:2(P) = 1 Ch 1:5, and ‘father’ of אֱלִישָׁא, תַּרְשִׁישׁ, כִּתִּים and רֹדָנִים (so read for דֹדָנִים) Gn 10:4 (P) = 1 Ch 1:7 (in these 𝔊 Ιωυναν, v. LagBN 84 Anm.); addressed (personif.) בָּנַיִךְ יָוָן Zc 9:13 (opp. בניך צִיּוֹן) 𝔊 Ἕλληνες, and so in foll.; מֶלֶךְ יָוָן Dn 8:21 (v. מַלְכֵי מָדַי וּפָרָ֑ס v 20) = king of Greece i.e. kingdom over which Alexander ruled, whose dominion was afterward divided (see v 22 ff.); שַׂר־יָוָן 10:20 of the guardian-angel of Greece (v. שַׂר פָּרָס v a); מַלְכוּת יָוָן 11:2 (v b פָּרָס).—Ez 27:19 וְיָוָן is text. error, v. וְדָן supr. p. 255a.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from יין (yayin) (H3196) — wine.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
יָוֵן
- יון to be thick, dark, thickness, טיט הי׳ thick, heavy clay, opp. to טיט טופח (v. טָפַח II). Mikv. IX, 2. Tosef. ib. VI (VII), 12; 13 אם היה טיט (ה)י׳ וחיברו if it was a thick massive clay and he attached it.—Denom. יְוֵנִי m. muddy, thick. Mikv. l. c., v. גֵּץ 2.
יָוָן
- (b. h.)
- 1. pr. n. m. Javan, son of Japheth, progenitor of the Grecian tribes, in gen. Greek, Greece;
- מלכות) Greek (Syrian) Government. Targ. Gen. X, 2; a. e.—Targ. Y. Gen. XV, 12.—Gen. R. s. 44 (ref. to איל משלש, Gen. XV, 9) זו י׳ this alludes to the Greek government (founded by Alexander the Great). Ib. כל רוחות כבשו בני י׳ וכ׳ in all directions did the Greeks conquer, except in the East. Esth. R. introd. בבקרה של י׳ when Greece (Syria) is in the ascendancy, v. בֹּקֶר; a. fr.—Denom. יְוָנִי, יְוָנָאָה. e.g. Genesis 15:9
יוֹן
- , v. יוֹנְתָא
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms H3120 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| יָוָ֖ן | Noun, Proper | Daniel 10:20 | 3 |
| וְ/יָוָ֣ן | Noun, Proper | Genesis 10:2 | 2 |
| יָוָ֑ן | Noun, Proper | Daniel 8:21 | 2 |
| וְ/יָוָ֑ן | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 66:19 | 1 |
| וְ/יָוָן֙ | Noun, Proper | Ezekiel 27:19 | 1 |
| יָוָ֤ן | Noun, Proper | Ezekiel 27:13 | 1 |
| יָוָֽן | Noun, Proper | Daniel 11:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3120, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Javan). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
(1.) The fourth "son" of Japheth (Gen. 10:2), whose descendants settled in Greece, i.e., Ionia, which bears the name of Javan in Hebrew. Alexander the Great is called the "king of Javan" (rendered "Grecia," Dan. 8:21; 10:20; comp. 11:2; Zech. 9:13). This word was universally used by the nations of the East as the generic name of the Greek race.
(2.) A town or district of Arabia Felix, from which the Syrians obtained iron, cassia, and calamus (Ezek. 27:19).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(clay).
+ A son of Japheth. (Genesis 10:2,4) Javan was regarded as the representative of the Greek race. The name was probably introduced into Asia by the Phoenicians, to whom the Ionians were naturally better known than any other of the Hellenic races, on account of their commercial activity and the high prosperity of their towns on the western coast of Asia Minor. + A town in the souther part of Arabia (Yemen), whither the Phoenicians traded. (Ezekiel 27:19)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
deceiver; one who makes sad
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
