historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

THE KITTIM IN THE WAR SCROLL AND
IN THE PESHARIM*
HANAN ESHEL
Bar-Ilan University
At the end of Balaam's prophecies (Num. 24:24), it is written:
"Ships come from the
quarter of Kittim, they subject Asshur, subject Eber. They too shall
perish forever." In the Table of the Nations (Gen. 10:4), the Kittim
are mentioned as the descendants of Japheth, together with Javan,
while in Jer. 2:10 they are discussed as follows:
. . . "Just cross over to the islands of
Kittim and look; send to Kedar and observe carefully." Thus it seems
that the name Kittim was used as a general epithet for western nations. 1
Concerning the Kittim, Josephus said, "The name Kittim ( )
is given by the Hebrews to all the islands and to most of the countries
near the sea" (Ant. 1.128). Based on Num. 24:24, Jews of the
Second Temple period seem to have applied the name Kittim to
every nation that came to Israel by boat. Balaam's prophecy was
understood as eschatological, according to which the Kittim shall
rule over Asshur and Israel as well, but will finally perish. Since this
was understood as a description of the End of Days, the identification
of the Kittim as the nation coming from the west was of great
significance to those who were waiting for the End of Days in the
Second Temple period.
By the end of the second century BCE there was a dispute about
the identification of the Kittim in Judea. The author of 1 Maccabees,
writing at the beginning of the reign of John Hyrcanus around the
year 135, identified the Kittim as the Macedonians:
This is the history of events which began in the era of the hellenistic
dynasty. The dynasty has its origins in the time of Alexander son of
* This article was written while I was a visiting lecturer in Late Second Temple
Judaism at Harvard Divinity School in 1998 99.
1 On the connection of the Kittim to the city Citium ( ) in Cyprus, see
S. E. Loewenstamm, "Kittim," Encyclopaedia Biblica 4 (1962): cols. 394-98 (Hebrew).