Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 10:2

"The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras." — Genesis 10:2 (ASV)

The sons of Japheth. —Of these, seven main divisions are enumerated, some of which are subsequently subdivided; they are—

1. Gomer, whose name reappears in the Cimmerians. Their original settlement was between Magog and Madai, that is, between the Scythians and the Medes. After remaining for some time on the Caspian and Black Seas (on the latter of which they left their name in the Crimea), a powerful branch of them struck across the centre of Russia, and, skirting the Baltic, became the Cimbri of Denmark (from where the name Chersonesus Cimbrica, a name given to Jutland, comes), the Cymry of Wales, and so on. Generally, they are the race to which the name Celts is given.
2. Magog. The Scythians, who once possessed the country north and south of the Caucasus. The Russians are their modern representatives, being descended from the Sarmatians, a Scythic race, with a small admixture of Median blood.
3. Madai. The Medes, who lived to the south and southwest of the Caspian. Mada, in the Accadian language, means land, and it was in the Median territory that Kharsak-Kurra, “the mountain of the East,” was situated, on which the Accadians believed the ark to have rested. From here, possibly, Media took its name, as it was “the land” above all others (Chald. Gen., p. 196).
4. Javan, that is, Ionia, the land of the Greeks.
5. Tubal. The Tibareni, on the southeast of the Black Sea.
6. Meshech. The Moschi, a people of Colchis and Armenia.
7. Tiras. According to Josephus and the Targum, the Thracians. Other races have been suggested, but this is probably right; and as the Getae, the ancestors of the Goths, were Thracians, this would make the Scandinavian race the modern representatives of Tiras.

In this enumeration, the race of Japheth is described as occupying Asia Minor, Armenia, the countries to the west as far as the Caspian Sea, and from there northward to the shores of the Black Sea.

Subsequently, it spread along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and over all Europe.

But though unnoticed by the writer, its extension was equally remarkable towards the east.

Parthia, Bactria, the Punjab, and India are equally Japhethite with Germany, Greece, and Rome. And in Sanskrit literature, the Aryan first showed that genius, which—omitting the greatest of all books, the Semitic Bible—has made this race the foremost writers in the world.