MASH

A descendant of Shem through Aram. (Gen. 10:22, 23; 1 Chron. 1:17, Sy and six Hebrew manuscripts) At 1 Chronicles 1:17 the Masoretic text reads “Meshech” instead of “Mash.” But this is probably a scribal error, since Meshach is listed as a “son” of Japheth.—Gen. 10:2; 1 Chron. 1:5.

Some link Mash and his descendants with Mons Massius, a mountainous region of northern Mesopotamia mentioned by Greek geographer Strabo. Others associate Mash with a part of the Syro-Arabian desert called “the country of Mash” in Assyrian annals and described as “the desert where parching thirst is at home, where there are not even birds in the sky and wherein neither wild donkeys (nor) gazelles pasture.”—Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 299.