Bible Locations

Kittim originally referred to the people of Kition, a Phoenician city on Cyprus, now Larnaca, and then to Cyprus, and later more broadly to peoples from the west across the sea. Genesis 10:4 lists Kittim among the sons of Javan. In Balaam's final oracle, "Ships will come from the shores of Cyprus; they will subdue Ashur and Eber" (Numbers 24:24), literally "from Kittim." Daniel 11:30 says, "Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him," again "Kittim," which most scholars link to the Roman fleet whose envoy, Popilius Laenas, forced Antiochus IV to leave Egypt in 168 BC by drawing a circle around him in the sand. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, "the Kittim" means the Romans. First Maccabees 1:1 says Alexander the Great came "from the land of Kittim," meaning Macedonia. Excavations at Kition found Phoenician temples and remains from the Bronze Age.