The Talmudic Identifications of Some Nations and Cities in the Biblical Table of Nations in Genesis 10 (Yoma 10a)

The Talmudic Identifications of Some Nations and Cities in the Biblical Table of Nations in Genesis 10 (Yoma 10a)

Generations of Noah - Wikipedia:

The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or Origines Gentium, is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible, and their dispersion into many lands after the Flood, focusing on the major known societies [...]

The list of 70 names introduces for the first time several well-known ethnonyms and toponyms important to biblical geography, such as Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, from which 18th century German scholars at the Göttingen School of History derived the race terminology Semites, Hamites and Japhetites. 

Certain of Noah's grandsons were also used for names of peoples: from Elam, Ashur, Aram, Cush, and Canaan were derived respectively the Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Cushites, and Canaanites. 

Likewise, from the sons of Canaan: Heth, Jebus, and Amorus were derived Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites. 

Further descendants of Noah include Eber – from Shem; the hunter-king Nimrod – from Cush; and the Philistines – from Misrayim.

The full list of names and cities is 32 verses long, the entirety of Genesis chapter 10. However, this Talmudic passage only discusses those named in verses 2 (four sons and three grandsons of Japheth), 7 (three  sons of Cush), and 10-12 (four names of cities are decoded). The cities are in or near Mesopotomia, so it makes sense that the Talmud has a special interest in their modern-day geographical identities.

Names discussed (chart from Hebrew Wikipedia - תבנית: אילן יוחסין של בני נח,¹ I underlined the ones discussed in this passage in red -- top-left and middle): 

Outline

1. “Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tuval and Meshech and Tiras” (verse 2)

2. “Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca” (verse 7)

3. “Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh” (verse 10)

4. “Asshur” (verse 11)

5. “Nineveh and Rehoboth-ir and Calah” (verse 11)

6. “Resen between Nineveh and Calah, it is the great city” (verse 12)

Source

https://www.sefaria.org.il/Yoma.10a.2-5. I added bolding to names, the first time a name appears. All numbering is mine. I also added hyperlinks to relevant Wikipedia entries, for Biblical names (see each entry for an overview of historical and modern identifications of these names), and for some of the Talmudic identifications. For some of the identifications, I cited parts of the Wikipedia in footnotes.

It is important to note that there are important textual variants in this passage. This is true for many Talmudic passages, but it’s especially important here. This is not something I checked. The specific names in this textual version should accordingly be taken with caution.²

“Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tuval and Meshech and Tiras” (verse 2)

ופרסאי מנא לן דמיפת קאתו, 

דכתיב: ״בני יפת: גומר, ומגוג, ומדי, ויון, ותובל, ומשך, ותירס״. 

1. גומר — זה גרממיא, 

2. מגוג — זו קנדיא, 

3. מדי — זו מקדוניא, 

4. יון — כמשמעו, 

5. תובל — זה בית אונייקי, 

6. משך — זו מוסיא, 

תירס, פליגי בה רבי סימאי ורבנן, ואמרי לה רבי סימון ורבנן, 

1. חד אמר: זו בית תרייקי, 

2. וחד אמר: זו פרס. תני רב יוסף: תירס — זו פרס. 

The Gemara asks: From where do we derive that the Persians descend from Japheth? 

The Gemara answers: As it is written: “The sons of Japheth were Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tuval and Meshech and Tiras” (Genesis 10:2). 

The Gemara explains: 

1. Gomer, that is Germamya; 

2. Magog, that is Kandiya; 

3. Madai, that is Macedonia; 

4. Javan, in accordance with its plain meaning, Greece; 

5. Tuval, that is the nation called Beit Unaiki; 

6. Meshech, that is Musya. 

With regard to Tiras, Rabbi Simai and the Rabbis disagree, and some say the dispute is between Rabbi Simon and the Rabbis: 

1. One said: That is Beit Teraiki, 

2. and one said: That is Persia. According to that approach, Persia is listed among the descendants of Japheth. Rav Yosef taught: Tiras is Persia. 

“Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca” (verse 7)

״סבתה, ורעמה, וסבתכא״, 

תני רב יוסף: 

סקיסתן גוייתא וסקיסתן ברייתא, 

בין חדא לחדא מאה פרסי, 

והיקפה אלפא פרסי. 

The list of nations continues: “And Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca” (Genesis 10:7). 

Rav Yosef taught: 

These are the inner Sakistan and the outer Sakistan.³

Between one and the other there was a distance of one hundred parasangs, 

and the circumference of the land was one thousand parasangs. 

“Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh” (verse 10)

״ותהי ראשית ממלכתו בבל, וארך, ואכד, וכלנה״, 

1. בבל — כמשמעה, 

2. ארך — זה אוריכות, 

3. ואכד — זה בשכר, 

4. כלנה — זה נופר נינפי. 

The Gemara continues interpreting the verses. It is stated: “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar” (Genesis 10:10). 

1. Babel in accordance with its plain meaning, Babylonia; 

2. Erech, that is the city known then as Orikhut; 

3. and Accad, that is the place known then as Baskar⁴

4. Calneh, that is Nofer Ninefi. 

“Asshur” (verse 11)

״מן הארץ ההיא יצא אשור״, 

תני רב יוסף: 

אשור — זה סילק. 

The Torah continues: “Out of that land went forth Asshur” (Genesis 10:11). 

Rav Yosef taught: Asshur, that is Silek, meaning that is the region where the town Silkiya was built.⁵

“Nineveh and Rehoboth-ir and Calah” (verse 11)

״ויבן את נינוה, ואת רחובות עיר, ואת כלח״, 

1. נינוה — כמשמעו, 

2. רחובות עיר — זו פרת דמישן, 

3. כלח — זו פרת דבורסיף. 

“And built Nineveh and Rehoboth-ir and Calah” (Genesis 10:11). 

1. Nineveh, in accordance with its plain meaning; 

2. Rehovoth-ir, that is the town later known as Perat⁶ of Meishan;⁷

3. Calah, that is Perat of Bursif (=Borsippa).⁸

“Resen between Nineveh and Calah, it is the great city” (verse 12)

״ואת רסן, בין נינוה ובין כלח, היא העיר הגדולה״, 

1. רסן — זה אקטיספון. 

2. ״היא העיר הגדולה״ — איני יודע אם נינוה העיר הגדולה, אם רסן העיר הגדולה. כשהוא אומר ״ונינוה היתה עיר גדולה לאלהים מהלך שלשת ימים״, הוי אומר: נינוה היא העיר הגדולה.

“And Resen between Nineveh and Calah, it is the great city” (Genesis 10:12). 

1. Resen, that is the town later known as Akteisfon.⁹

2. “It is the great city”; I do not know whether this means that Nineveh is the great city, or whether it means that Resen is the great city. When it says: “And Nineveh was a great city of God, a three-day journey across” (Jonah 3:3), you must say that Nineveh is the great city.

Appendix - Yavan = Greece

Javan - Wikipedia:

Javan (Hebrew: יָוָן‎, Modern: Yavan, Tiberian: Yāwān) was the fourth son of Noah's son Japheth according to the "Generations of Noah" (Book of Genesis, chapter 10) in the Hebrew Bible. Josephus states the traditional belief that this individual was the ancestor of the Greeks.

Also serving as the Hebrew name for Greece or Greeks in general, יָוָן Yavan or Yāwān has long been considered cognate with the name of the eastern Greeks, the Ionians [...]

Giving that all Torah scrolls are strictly unpunctuated reading the word יון can give Yon, given as the letter Vaw may just as equally function as consonant (read "v") or vowel (read "o" or "ʊ"). The Greek race has been known by cognate names throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East and beyond: see Sanskrit Yona & Sanskrit (यवन yavana) or the proto-Aryan languages from which Sanskrit probably originated. In Greek mythology, the eponymous forefather of the Ionians is similarly called Ion, a son of Apollo [...]

Javan is also found in apocalyptic literature in the Book of Daniel, 8:21-22 and 11:2, in reference to the King of Greece (יון)—most commonly interpreted as a reference to Alexander the Great.

1. Technical: The Wikipedia chart is only viewable on desktop, not on mobile. Direct link to the chart here.

2. For some more discussion of these Talmudic identifications, and textual variants, see here.

3. “Sakastan […] was a Sasanian province in Late Antiquity […] The word "Sakastan" means "the land of the Saka"".

4. The printed edition says Bashkar (בשכר). It should correctly say Kashkar (כשכר; the very similar Hebrew letters beit and khaf were switched), see Jastrow (where he mentions that this city is mentioned elsewhere in the Talmud as well: Shabbat.139a.15 and Gittin.80b.2 (both times also incorrectly in the printed editions as Bashkar instead of Kashkar).

Kashkar - Wikipedia: “Kashkar, also known as Kaskar […] was a city in southern Mesopotamia […] The city was originally a significant Sasanian city built on the west bank of the Tigris.“

5. The Talmud clearly is viewing Ashur here as a city name. I therefore hyperlinked to the Wikipedia entry on the city of Ashur. However, see the Hebrew Wikipedia entry on Ashur (Biblical personality) :

[The Biblical verse] is unclear whether it was Ashur who left his land of Nimrod and built all those cities, or if Nimrod left his land to the land of Ashur and built those cities.

In the traditional interpretation, for example, Rashi adopts the view presented in the Midrash, "When Ashur saw his sons obeying Nimrod and rebelling against God to build the tower, he left them" (Rashi in his commentary on the Scripture).

However, Nachmanides interprets the continuation of the verse about Nimrod, "While he reigned over it... he went out to Ashur, for Ashur was one of the sons of Shem, ....and therefore the land of Ashur is called 'the land of Nimrod'." (Nachmanides in his commentary on the Scripture).

See also Ashur (Bible) - Wikipedia:

[T]here [is] contention in academic circles regarding whether Ashur or Nimrod built the Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Resen, Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, since the name Ashur can refer to both the person and the country

6. Perat is the Hebrew name for the Euphrates river.

7. “Meshan […] was a province of the Sasanian Empire.”

8. “Borsippa ([…] Akkadian: Barsip and Til-Barsip) or Birs Nimrud (having been identified with Nimrod) is an archeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. The ziggurat is today one of the most vividly identifiable surviving ones, identified in the later Arabic culture with the Tower of Babel due to Nebuchadnezzar referring to it as the Tower of Borsippa or tongue tower, as stated in the stele recovered on site in the 19th century […]

Borsippa is mentioned […] mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 36a, Avodah Zarah 11b) and other rabbinic literature.”

9. “Ctesiphon […] was an ancient Iranian city, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and about 35 kilometres (22 mi) southeast of present-day Baghdad. Ctesiphon served as a royal capital of the Iranian empire in the Parthian and Sasanian eras for over eight hundred years. Ctesiphon was capital of the Sasanian Empire from 226–637 until the Muslim conquest of Persia in 651 AD.“

The town of Mahoza (מחוזא), often mentioned in the Talmud, was near Ctesiphon. See Encyclopedia Iranica, entry “MADĀʾEN”:

“MADĀʾEN (lit. the cities; Ar. sing. Madina, cf. Aram. pl. Māḥozē or Medinātā), the Sasanian metropolitan area of several contiguous cities, on both sides of the Tigris and connected by floating bridges, about 35 km southeast of Abbasid Baghdad. At the end of the Sasanian period, this metropolis served as the administrative capital, the winter home of the monarch, the residence of the Jewish Exilarch, and the seat of the Catholikos of the Christian Church of the East. About 130,000 people, or over 30,000 families were estimated to be living in the environs of Madāʾen when it fell to the Muslims in 637 […]

Opposite Ctesiphon on the west bank was the round, walled city of Weh-Ardašir, called Māḥozā (lit. the city) by Jews […]”.