Japheth’s descendants (vv. 2-5). Seven sons are named and seven grandsons from only two of the sons. Does this mean that the other five sons had no children born to them, or is it another evidence of the selective approach of the compiler? Japheth is the ancestor of the Gentile nations who located north and west of the land of Canaan. These would be the distant nations, the countries that represented the “outer limits” of civilization for the average Old Testament Jew (Ps. 72:8-10).