Abib
A'bib (Heb. Abib', אָבַיב, from an obsolete root = אָבִב to fructify), properly, a head or ear of grain (Le 2:14, "green ears;" Ex 13:22, "ear"); hence, the month of newly-ripe grain (Ex 13:4; Ex 23:15; Ex 34:18; De 16:1), the first of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, afterward (Ne 2:1) called NISAN SEE NISAN (q.v.). It began with the new moon of March, according to the Rabbins (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. col. 3), or rather of April, according to Michaelis (Comment. de Alensibus Hebraeor., comp. his Commentat. Bremas, 1769, p. 16 sq.); at which time the first grain ripens in Palestine (Robinson's Researches, 2:99, 100). SEE MONTH. Hence it is hardly to be regarded as a strict name of a month, but rather as a designation of the season; as the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Saadias have well rendered, in Ex 13:4, the month of the new grain;" less correctly the Syriac, "the month of flowers" (comp. Bochart, Hieroz. 1:557). Others (as A. Muller, Gloss. Sacra, p. 2) regard the name as derived from the eleventh Egyptian month, Epep (ἐπιφί, Plut. de Iside, p. 372); but this corresponds neither to March or April, but to July (Fabricii Menologium, p. 22-27; Jablonsky, Opusc. ed. Water, 1:65 sq.). SEE TEL-ABIB.
