Elishah

Elishah was the eldest son of Javan, the grandson of Noah through Japheth, and is reckoned among the seventy nations of the table of nations in Genesis 10. His name, meaning God is salvation, associates him with a branch of early post-diluvian humanity. Scholars have proposed various identifications, with proposals including the Greeks of Elis in the Peloponnese, the Aeolians, or inhabitants of the island of Cyprus or Sicily.

Ezekiel refers to the isles of Elishah as a source of blue and purple dye used for the awnings of Tyrian ships, linking the name to a seafaring Mediterranean people renowned for their textile trade. The geographical uncertainty reflects the ancient table's concern with ancestral origins rather than precise cartographic boundaries, and Elishah stands as one of the shadowy progenitors through whom Genesis traces the peopling of the post-flood world.