Greece, Greeks, Grecians

The histories of Greece and Palestine are little connected with each other. In ( Genesis 10:2-5 ) Moses mentions the descendants of Javan as peopling the isles of the Gentiles; and when the Hebrews came into contact with the Ionians of Asia Minor, and recognized them as the long-lost islanders of the western migration, it was natural that they should mark the similarity of sound between Javan and Iones. Accordingly the Old Testament word which is Grecia , in Authorized Versions Greece, Greeks , etc., is in Javan ( Daniel 8:21 ; Joel 3:6 ) the Hebrew, however, is sometimes regained. ( Isaiah 66:19 ; Ezekiel 27;13 Ezekiel 13 ) The Greeks and Hebrews met for the first time in the slave-market. The medium of communication seems to have been the Tyrian slave-merchants. About B.C. 800 Joel speaks of the Tyrians as, selling the children of Judah tot he Grecians, ( Joel 3:6 ) and in Ezek 27:13 the Greeks are mentioned as bartering their brazen vessels for slaves. Prophetical notice of Greece occurs in ( Daniel 8:21 ) etc., where the history of Alexander and his successors is rapidly sketched. Zechariah, ( Zechariah 9:13 ) foretells the triumphs of the Maccabees against the Greco-Syrian empire, while Isaiah looks forward to the conversion of the Greeks, amongst other Gentiles, through the instrumentality of Jewish missionaries. ( Isaiah 66:19 ) The name of the country, Greece occurs once in the New Testament, ( Acts 20:2 ) as opposed to Macedonia. [GENTILES]