Brewer's: Javan

[clay ]. Son of Japheth. In most Eastern languages it is the collective name of the Greeks, and is to be so understood in Isa. lxvi. 19, and Ezek. xxvii. 13.

In the World Before the Flood, by James Montgomery, Javan is the hero. On the day of his birth his father died, and Javan remained in the “patriarch's glen” under his mother's care, till she also died. Then he resolved to see the world, and sojourned for ten years with the race of Cain, where he became the disciple of Jubal, noted for his musical talents. At the expiration of that time he returned, penitent, to the patriarch's glen, where Zillah, daughter of Enoch, “won the heart to Heaven denied.” The giants invaded the glen, and carried off the little band captives. Enoch reproved the giants, who would have slain him in their fury, but they could not find him, “for he walked with God.” As he ascended through the air his mantle fell on Javan, who, “smiting with it as he moved along,” brought the captives safely back to the glen again. A tempest broke forth of so fearful a nature that the giant army fled in a panic, and their king was slain by some treacherous blow given by some unknown hand.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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