KITTIM - This name designates properly the island of Cyprus, and is to be so understood in the geographical list of the descendants of Javan (q.v.), that is, the lonians, in Gn.10.4. The name is based on that of the settlement on the south-east of the island, called Kition by the Greeks, the modern Larnaka. This was the first trading post of the Phoenicians on the Mediterranean, hence it is vaguely used in Ezk.27.6 (AV Chittim, RSV Cyprus) as the mother-city of all the maritime settlements westward. The connexion with the lonians or Greeks is not quite clear, since these were not the first settlers on the island. There were, however, undoubtedly Greek colonists there in the 8th cent. BC, as we learn from the inscription of the Assyrian Sargon of 720 BC, pointing to a settlement of Ionian Cyprians in Ashdod. A use of the word, still more vague, is found in Dn.11.30 (AV Chittim), where it refers to the Romans, while in Nu.24.24 (AV Chittim) it is applied apparently to the Macedonians; similarly in 1 Mac.1.1 (AV Chettiim, RV Chittim), 8.5 (AV Citims, RV Chittim, RSV Macedonians). The word also occurs in the Dead Sea Scrolls (q.v.), but whether it is applied there to the Romans or the Greeks (or to both) is a question on which scholars are not agreed. [Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - J.F.McC. - P.W.-M.]