Telabib
Tel-a'bib
[many Tel'-abib] (Chald. Tel-Abib', תֵּלאּאָבַיב, corn-hill; Sept. Μετέωρος; Vulg. Ad acerum novarum frugum), was probably a city of Chaldsea or Babylonia (Ezr 3:13), not of Upper Mesopotamia, as generally imagined (Calmet, ad loc.; Winer. ad loc.). The whole scene of Ezekiel's preaching and visions seems to have been Chaldea proper; and the river Chebar, as already observed, SEE CHEBAR, was not the Khabbfr, but a branch of the Euphrates. Ptolemy has in this region a Thelbencane and a Thal-atha (Geog. 5, 20); but neither name can be identified with Telabib, unless we suppose a serious corruption. Thiluta and Thelsaphata of Ammian. Marc. (24, 2; 25:8) have likewise been compared; but they are equally uncertain. The element "Tel," in Tel-abib, is undoubtedly "hill." It is applied in modern times by the Arabs especially to the mounds or heaps which mark the site of ruined cities all over the Mesopotamian plain, an application not very remote from the Hebrew use, according to which "Tel" is "especially a heap of stones" (Gesenius, ad loc.). It thus forms the first syllable in many modern as in many ancient names throughout Babylonia, Assyria, and Syria (see Assemani, Bibl. Orient. III, 2, 784).
