AVM, AVITES (Dmir ; Sept. Dialog). [This word has three distinct applications in the a T. It is—r. a Gentile name, from My, and designates the inhabitants of that city, 2 Kings xvii. 31[Ava]; 2. the name of a town in Benjamin (Ruins-town), Tosh. xviii. 23 ; the designation of) a people who originally occupied the southernmost portion of that territory in Palestine along the Mediter ranean coast, which the Caphtorim or Philistines afterwards possessed (Dent. ii. 23). As the terri tory of the Avim is mentioned in Josh. xiii. 3, in addition to the five Philistine states, it would appear that it was not included in theirs, and that the expulsion of the Avim was by a Philistine invasion prior to that by which the five principa lities were founded. The territory began at Gaza, and extended southward to the river of Egypt' (Dent. ii. 23), forming what was the sole Philistine kingdom of Gerar in the time of Abraham. The original country of the Avim is called Hazerim in Dent. ii. 23. [GERAR ; PHILISTINES.] [These Avim have been identified with the Hivites ; but, r. the words 1T11) and 4111 are radically distinct ; 2. the district belonging to the Hivites is different from that of the Avites. [HIVITES.] From the etymology of the word, the Avim are supposed to have been dwellers in ruins. To what an anti quity,' exclaims Mr. Stanley, does this carry us back !—ruins before the days of those who pre ceded the Philistines ;' Sin. and Palest. p. 119.] AVITH (-0x, Sept. PerOatn), a town of Ida mea, the seat of Hadad, the son of Bedad (Gen. xxxvi. 35 ; I Chron. i. 46). In the latter passage the textual reading is mv, but this evident mistake is corrected in the K'ri, which is followed by the A. V. Knobel (Genesis in ioe.) suggests that the name Avith survives in Ghowqthe, a range of hills on the east side of the Moabites (Burckhardt's Syr. p. 375).—W. L. A.
AWL ()fyn ; Sept. Ovirricip). The Hebrew word, which denotes an awl or other instrument for boring a small hole, occurs in Exod. xxi. 6 ; Dent. xv. I7. Considering that the Israelites had at that time recently withdrawn from their long sojourn in Egypt, there can be no doubt that the instruments were the same as those of that country, the forms of which, from actual specimens in the British Museum, are shewn in the annexed cut. They are such as were used by the sandal-makers and other workers in leather.—J. K.
AXE. Several instruments of this description are so discriminated in Scripture as to spew that the Hebrews had them of different forms and for various uses. 1. 111! garzen, which occurs in Dent. xix. 5; xx. 19; 1 Kings vi. 7; Is. x. r5. From these passages it appears that this kind was em ployed in felling trees, and in hewing large timber for building. The conjecture of Gesenius that, in Kings vi. 7, it denotes the axe of a stonemason is by no means conclusive. The first text supposes a case of the head slipping from the helve in felling a tree. This would suggest that it was shaped like fig. 3, which is just the same instrument as our common hatchet, and appears to have been applied by the ancient Egyptians to the same general use as with us. The reader will observe the contrivance in all the others (wanting in this) of fastening the head to the haft by thongs. 2. 1V3/73 maatzad, which occurs only in Is. xliv. 12 ; and Jer. x. 3. From these passages it appears to have been a lighter implement than the former, or a kind of adze, used for fashioning or carving wood into shape ; it was, probably, therefore, like figs. 4 to 7, which the Egyptians employed for this purpose. Some texts of Scripture represent axes as being employed in carving images-the use to which the prophets refer. The differences of form and size, as indicated in the figures, appear to have been determined with reference to light or heavy work : fig. 5 is a finer carving-tool. 3. ?ilp quardom ; this is the commonest name for an axe or hatchet. It is this of which we read in Judg. ix. 48; Ps. lxxiv. 5 ; 1 Sam. xiii. 20, 21 ; Jer. xlvi. 22. It appears to have been more exclusively employed than the garzen for felling trees, and had therefore probably a heavier head. In one of the Egyptian sculptures the inhabitants of Lebanon are repre sented as felling pine-trees with axes like fig. 1. As the one used by the Egyptians for the same purpose was also of this shape, there is little doubt that it was also in use among the Hebrews. [4.
111 barzel, literally `iron' 2 Kings vi. 5], but as an axe is certainly intended, the passage is valuable as shewing that some axe-heads among the Hebrews were of iron. Those which have been found in Egypt are of bronze, which was very anciently and generally used for the purpose.-J. K.