Kittim

Kittim (also spelled Chittim) was a son of Javan (Greece) in the table of nations (Genesis 10:4; 1 Chronicles 1:7), giving his name to an island people of the Mediterranean. In its most specific sense, Kittim referred to the inhabitants of Cyprus and particularly the city of Kition (modern Larnaka), and the name appears in early texts in association with the island. The identification expanded over time to encompass other Mediterranean island peoples—Macedonians, Romans, and western sea powers generally.

In prophetic literature, Kittim underwent a significant semantic expansion. Numbers 24:24 uses it in Balaam's oracle: ships shall come from Kittim and shall afflict Asshur and Eber—applied by later interpreters variously to the Greeks under Alexander or to Rome. Daniel 11:30 refers to ships of Kittim that came against the king of the North (Antiochus IV Epiphanes), a reference confirmed by historical records of Roman envoys who humiliated Antiochus at Alexandria in 168 BC. The Dead Sea Scrolls use Kittim extensively as a code name for Rome, reflecting the term's continued evolution from Cyprus to the dominant western imperial power of each successive era.