Meshech

משך


Genesis 10:2: a son of Yaphet, the Greek Japetus. Probably the Moschi or Mushki or Meskheti in Georgian, a tribe inhabiting the mountainous region between 
Armenia and Colchis, usually linked with the Tibareni (Biblical Tuval - תובל).

Psalm 120:5: "Woe is me that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar"; an odd phrase, from which we have to assume that Meshech has another meaning besides the geographical region. Kedar is linked to Kidron, the stream that flowed through Yeru-Shala'im and came out at the Dead Sea; no one wanted to live by it because it was the main sewage system for Yeru-Shala'im, so at least half of that Psalmic line is self-explanatory.

Mashach (משך) means "to draw out"; and Hosea 7:5 quotes a contemporary proverb: "Mashach yado et-lotsetsim (משך ידו את-לצצים)" meaning "to spend time with wicked men". We can now re-translate the Psalmic verse without difficulty: "Woe unto me if I waste my time with ne'er-do-wells and make my bed in sewage".

Yechezke-El
 (Ezekiel) has many references to the Moschians, as does Herodotus.




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