The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border.
The children also of Judah ... and of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians - literally, sons of the Javanites, i:e., the Ionians, a Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor, who were the first Greeks known to the Jews. The Greeks themselves, however, in their original descent came from Javan (Genesis 10:2; Genesis 10:4, "The sons of Japheth ... Javan ... and the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands"). Probably the germ of Greek civilization in part came through the Jewish slaves imported into Greece from Phoenicia by traffickers Ezekiel 27:13 mentions Javan and Tyre "as trading in the persons of men." Aristophanes ('The Birds,' 505-507) alludes (427 BC) to the Phoenician custom of sending circumcised (probably Jewish) slaves to labour in their harvest fields. Their proverbial jest was, 'Cuckoo! (i:e., it is harvest tune, as the cuckoo's note shows) ye circumcised to the field.' Compare 1Ma 3:41 ; 2Ma 8:34 : and earlier, the little slave maiden who waited on Naaman's wife, 2 Kings 5:2.
Far from their border - far from Judea; so that the captive Jews were cut off from all hope of return.