__NOTOC__ Tel Abib (, ''Tel Aviv'', "the hill of Spring", from Akkadian ''Tel Abûbi'', "The Tel of the flood") is an unidentified tell ("hill city") on the Kebar Canal, near

Nippur Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...

in what is now Iraq. Tel Abib is mentioned by

Ezekiel Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied ...

in Ezekiel 3:15:

Location

The Kebar or Chebar Canal (or River) is the setting of several important scenes of the

Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Nevi'im#Latter Prophets, Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and one of the Major Prophets, major prophetic books in the Christian Bible, where it follows Book of Isaiah, Isaiah and ...

, including the opening verses. The book refers to this river eight times in total. Some older

biblical commentaries Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations ...

identified the Chebar with the Khabur River in what is now

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. The Khabur is mentioned in as the "Habor". However, more recent scholarship is agreed that the location of the Kebar Canal is near

in Iraq. The ''ka-ba-ru'' waterway ( Akkadian) is mentioned among the 5th century BCE Murashu archives from Nippur. It was part of a complex network of

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

and transport canals which also included the Shatt el-Nil, a silted up canal toward the east of Babylon. It is not to be confused with the Kebar River in Iran, site of

Kebar Dam The Kebar Dam is a masonry arch dam on the Kebar River, Iran, located near a town of the same name, 23 km southeast of Qom, near the village of Zanburak in Jannatabad, Qom. The dam is an early arch dam and was the first arch dam constructed b ...

, the oldest surviving arch dam.

Legacy

Nahum Sokolow Nahum ben Joseph Samuel Sokolow ( ''Nachum ben Yosef Shmuel Soqolov'', ; 10 January 1859 – 17 May 1936) was a Jewish-Polish people, Polish writer, translator, and journalist, the fifth President of the World Zionist Organization, editor of ''H ...

adopted the biblical place-name as the title for his Hebrew translation of

Theodor Herzl Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of Types of Zionism, modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organizat ...

's 1902 novel ''Altneuland'' ("Old New Land"), basing it on archaeologists' use of Arabic "tel" extracted from placenames to mean = "accumulated mound of debris" for "old", and "spring" (season) for "new", "renewal". Menachem Shenkin picked its name to mean a new Jewish village near

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

, which grew into the modern

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i city of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

. The

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

letter ב without

dagesh The dagesh () is a diacritic that is used in the Hebrew alphabet. It takes the form of a dot placed inside a consonant. A dagesh can either indicate a "hard" plosive version of the consonant (known as , literally 'light dot') or that the conson ...

represents a sound like but older English translations of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

traditionally transcribe it as "b".

References

{{Reflist Hebrew Bible places Book of Ezekiel Tells (archaeology) History of Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate Archaeological sites in Iraq History of Tel Aviv

Location

Legacy

See also

References