Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

KITTIM

(Heb. kittîm, kittîyîm)

According to the Table of Nations (Gen. 10:1-32), a people descended from Japheth through Javan, thus the Ionians or Greeks (v. 4; cf. 1 Chr. 1:7). The name probably derived from the city the Phoenicians called Kitti (kty) and the Greeks Kition, located near modern Larnaka on the south-central coast of Cyprus. Elsewhere in the OT Kittim designated an ever-widening geographic area.

In Num. 24:24 the oracles of Balaam conclude with a reference to ships from Kittim (presumably Cyprus), which will afflict both Asshur (Assyria) and Eber (Hebrews), before coming to an end themselves. In Isa. 23:1, 12 the term refers to Cyprus as a trading partner of Tyre (cf. Ezek. 27:6), and in Jer. 2:10 its inhabitants are said to have been more faithful to their false gods than Israel has been to Yahweh. 1 Macc. 1:1; 8:5 report that Alexander the Great came from Kittim, thus identifying Greece — or at least Macedonia — with the place name Kittim. Dan. 11:30 alludes to the ships from Kittim in Num. 24:24, but applies the phrase to Roman intervention against Antiochus Epiphanes during his invasion of Egypt in 168 b.c.e. Thus Kittim came to refer to Rome too. The verse implies the further identification of the Seleucids with Asshur and Eber with the Hebrews.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls the Kittim are the eschatological foe (cf. 1QpHab). Descriptions of them often apply to either Syria or to Rome, but the commentary on Nahum (4QpNah) and the War Scroll (1QM) refer unmistakably to Rome.

Paul L. Redditt

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

KITTIM

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)