Ivah
I'vah (Heb. Ivvah', עַוָּה, for עִיָּה, avvah', an overturning or ruin, as in Eze 21:32; Sept. Α᾿ουά, but in Isa 37:13, unites with the preced word into Α᾿ναεγγουγανά), a city of the Assyrians Whence they brought colonists to re-people Samaria (2Ki 18:34; 2Ki 19:13; Isa 37:13, where it is mentioned in connection with Hena and Sepharvaim; also in the cognate form "Ava," 2Ki 17:24, where it stands in connection with Babylon and Cuthah). Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that the site must be sought in Babylonia, and that it is probably identical with the modern Hit, which is the Hit of Herodotus (1, 179), a place famous for bituminous springs (see Rich, First Memoir on Babylon, p. 64, and Chesney, Euphrates Expedition, 1, 55). This town lay on the Euphrates, between Sippara (Sepharvaim) and Anah (Hena), with which it seems to have been politically united shortly before the time of Sennacherib (2Ki 19:13). He also regards it as probably the Ahava (אִִהוָא) of Ezra (8:15). He believes the name to have been originally derived from that of a Babylonian god, Ιυα, who represents the sky or Ether, and to whom the town is supposed to have been dedicated (Rawlinson, Herodotus, 1, 606, note). In the Talmud the name appears as Ihih (יהיא), whence might possibly be formed the Greek Ιχ, and the modern Hit (where the t is merely the feminine ending), if we might suppose any connection between the Greek and the Talmud. Isidore of Charax seems to intend the same place by his Α᾿εί-πολις (Mans. Parth. p. 5). Some have thought that it occurs as Ist in the Egyptian inscriptions of the time of Thothmes III, about B.C. 1450 (Birch, in Otia Eggyptiaca, p. 80). But these conjectures are destitute of any great probability, as the form of the Heb. name does not well correspond. See AVA.
