Riphath (Hastings' Dictionary)

One of the sons of Gomer, Gn 10'. The parallel pa.ssage, I Ch 1», reads Diphath (n5n, so RV, but AV Riph- ath); but this is certainly an ancient scribal error, easily explicable as due to an interchange of i and t. The LXX (B 'EpH<pde, A 'Pdjia^) and Vulgate (Riphath) support this view. The ethnographical sense of Riphath is uncer- tain. Perhaps the view of Josephus (Ant. I. vi. 1) that the Riphseans (i.e. Paphlagonians) are meant is still the most plausible.

Bochart and Lagarde think of the Bithynian river Rhebas, which falls into the Black Sea, and the district Rlieliantia in the Thracian Bosporus; but, as Pillmann remarks, tills appears to be too far west for the position of Riphath between Ashkenaz (? Phrygia) and To- garmah (? W. Armenia). A widely held opinion, which makes its appearance as early as the Book of Jubilees, identified Riphath with the fabulous Ripha?an mountains, which were supposed to form the northern boundary of the earth. J.

A. SELniE.