Gomer

AI summary: Gomer matters because the cross references place him at the head of an important branch in the table of nations. Through Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah, his line becomes one of the ways the Bible imagines the widening map of peoples after the flood, and later prophecy still invokes that name on the horizon of the nations. His significance is therefore both genealogical and geopolitical. Taken together, the material presents Gomer as a foundational ancestor in the Bible's vision of the wider world.¹

The eldest son of Japheth, and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah (Gen. 10:2, 3), whose descendants formed the principal branch of the population of South-eastern Europe. He is generally regarded as the ancestor of the Celtae and the Cimmerii, who in early times settled to the north of the Black Sea, and gave their name to the Crimea, the ancient Chersonesus Taurica. Traces of their presence are found in the names Cimmerian Bosphorus, Cimmerian Isthmus, etc. In the seventh century B.C. they were driven out of their original seat by the Scythians, and overran western Asia Minor, whence they were afterwards expelled. They subsequently reappear in the times of the Romans as the Cimbri of the north and west of Europe, whence they crossed to the British Isles, where their descendants are still found in the Gaels and Cymry. Thus the whole Celtic race may be regarded as descended from Gomer. ³