Person Old Testament
Japheth
Japheth was one of Noah's three sons and the ancestor of the Indo-European peoples. Mentioned in 11 verses across 2 books, first at Genesis 5:32.
Why it matters. Son of Noah, ancestor of Indo-European peoples
- Primary passages
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30 by the FaithGraph team
About Japheth
Japheth was one of the three sons of Noah, along with Shem and Ham, as recorded in Gen.5.32 and Gen.6.10. He and his brothers were born before the Great Flood. Japheth, his wife, and his brothers and their wives entered the ark with Noah and survived the Flood (Gen.7.13). After the Flood, Noah blessed Japheth, saying, "May God extend Japheth's territory; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth" (Gen.9.27). Japheth's descendants are listed in Gen.10.2-5 and 1Ch.1.5-7, and they are generally associated with the Indo-European peoples, including the Greeks, Medes, and Thracians. The name Japheth means "enlargement" or "expansion," which is fitting given the widespread distribution of his descendants. Japheth's offspring played a significant role in the repopulation of the earth after the Flood and the development of various nations and cultures.
Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.
Connections
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Family
Family links from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0). Where the dataset marks an identification as uncertain, the mark is kept. Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus; see the Lineage page, which never merges them.
Appears in Scripture
Named in 11 verses across 2 books. Occurrence data from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0); references only, no translation text.