The Far East and The Lost Tribes

In the KJV of Genesis 9:27 Noah prophecies that God shall "Enlarge" Japheth.  The traditions identifying Japheth mainly with European nations have taken this to refer to Europe's political dominance of the rest of the world over the last 500 years or so.  While those who seek to associate Japheth mainly with the Far East say it refers to Japheth's descendants becoming the most numerous.

Asia east of Iran and south of the former USSR is less then an Eight of the Earth's Surface but contains over half of the population of Humanity.  And that's not even counting how the Native Americans are now mostly agreed to have previously been in this region.

Here is the problem though.  "Enlarge" is a mis-translation in that verse.  The Hebrew word is Pathah which is also the root the name Japheth comes from.  But that word as a verb occurs many times in the Hebrew Scriptures but is translated "Enlarge" only here, other times you see "enlarge" or a form of that word in the KJV it's a different Hebrew word.  Pathah is usually translated allure, persuade, entice, and in negative contexts deceive.  In Genesis 9:27 this is followed by saying Japheth will dwell in the Tents of Shem, it was also in Shem that YHWH set up His Tabernacle.

As far as Bible Prophecy predicting certain people to be the most numerous, those promises are made exclusively to certain descendants of Shem.  In Genesis 15:5 and 22:17 Abraham is promised his Seed will be multiplied as the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea shore.  And this promise is repeated to Isaac in Genesis 26:4, and to Jacob in Genesis 32:12, and it's reaffirmed in Exodus 32:13, Deuteronomy 1:10, 10:22, 1 Chronicles 27:23, Nehemiah 9:23 and Isaiah 10:22 (quoted in Romans 9:27), and Hosea 1:10 which is specifically about the Northern Kingdom, and Hebrews 11:12.  (Jeremiah 33:22 even says this specifically of the Seed of David, via Solomon's Daughters in 1 Kings 4 David's Seed did exist among the Northern Kingdom's population, but this promise's applicability to David could be fulfilled in how all Christian are made the Seed of Jesus regardless of actual biology).

Also Genesis 24:60 foretells Rebecca's Seed will be Thousands of Millions, that's Billions.

But we can get even more specific then that.  Deuteronomy 33's blessings on the Tribes seem to give a particular promise of large populations to three of them.  First in verse 6 "Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few."

Then verse 17 talking about Joseph seems to predict Ephraim to have a much larger population then Manasseh, which is also consistent with Genesis 48.  But this never happened during the recorded Old Testament history of the Tribes, every Biblical Census has Manasseh being larger then Ephraim in population, and Manasseh also had twice the land Ephraim did being on both sides of the Jordan.

Finally verse 20 says Gad will be enlarged, and this Hebrew word does mean that, being translated that way most of the time in the KJV.

I've talked before on this Blog about how the Deported Northern Israelites were most likely taken east of the Euphrates River.  But also how it wasn't really all of the Northern Kingdom deported by Assyria.  The first Deportation was of Naphtali and the Trans-Jordan Tribes, and the second focused on part of Ephraim and some of Western Manasseh near the border with Ephraim.  The Trans-Jordan Tribes were Reuben, Gad and the eastern half of Manasseh.  Gad as I've talked about before is often who the Japanese are identified with.

Now I do think Japheth and Ham probably both contributed to the early populations of the Far East.  The deported Israelites were mingled among the Gentiles.