HIVITES or', only found in the sing. and with the article ; LXX. Ezialos), a nation descended from Canaan. Gesenius suggests that the karne may signify villagers,' from nv-.1 [unused] = nap, a village of nomades, a village' (Lex. s. v.) In the list of the descendants of Canaan, the Hivite' is followed by tribes most, if not all, of which dwelt to the north of the Israelite territory out of the tract actually conquered. No name of the same region occurs before, save Sidon, if it should be assigned to it, mentioned at the head of the list as the first-born of Canaan (Gen. x. 15-18; Chron. 13-16). With this placing agree the mention of the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh' (Josh. xi. 3), and of the Hivite that dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal hermon unto the entering in of Hamath' (Judg. iii. 3). The Hivite prince Hamor in Jacob's time ruled in the heart of Palestine. We also find a Hivite confederacy, at the time of the conquest, consisting of Gibeon, Chephirah, l3eeroth, and Kirjath-jearim (Josh. xi. 17).
It is remarkable that the IIivites, although men tioned in the list of Gen. x., and afterwards as settled in the Land of Promise, are not found, in the Hebrew text, in the list of nations whose territories were promised to Abmham (Gen. xv. 19-21). In the LXX. and Samaritan they occur (ver. 21). The omission in the Hebrew has led to the startling conjecture that they are the same as the Kadmon ites. It is indeed by no means impossible that a Canaanite tribe should be called by different names, when we find such cases of various names as that of Hermon, but we cannot attempt an identification of two names when the significations are neither the same nor similar, and when theie seems nothing appropriate in the supposed second name. In this passage, the position of the Hivites, if represented by the Kadmonites, would be at the head of the nations usually assigned to the Land of Promise, and this is most unlikely, nnless the order be geo graphical. A more ingenious conjecture has been put forward by Mr. Grove, who suggests the identity of the Hivites and the Avites, or Avim, on the grounds, (a) that at a later time the Galileans confounded the gutturals ; (b) that the LXX. and Jerome do not distinguish the tWO names ; (c) that the town of ha-Avvim (` Avim,' A. V.) was in the same district as the Hivites of Gibeon ; (a') and that the Avim disappear before the Hivites appear ; (e) to which we may add, that if Gesenius's etym ology be sound it is remarkable that the Avim are described as dwelling in villages' (see Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Avtm, InvITEs). On the other hand, ta)it is unlikely that a dialectic difference would be recorded, and it seems too slight to be anything else ; (b) the LXX. and Jerome are not very careful as to exact transcriptions of proper names ; (c) the presence of Avim in a district does not prove them to be the same as other inhabitants of that district ; (c/) and the narrative in Deut. ii. speaks only of the overthrow, before the coming of the Israelites, by later settlers, of certain tribes or peoples, not mentioned in the list of Gen. x., which were, as far as stated, Rephahn, or of Rcphaite stock. The probability that the Avim were of this stock is strengthened by the circumstance that there was a remnant of the Rephaim among the Philistines in David's time, as there was among other nations when the Israelites conquered the country. There fore, it seems to us very unlikely that the Avim were the same as the Hivites.
The Hivites first appear in the history of the Hebrews as a settled race, resembling the Hittites of Hebron. The narrative of the transaction of Jacob, when he bought the 'parcel of a field,' closely resembles that of Abraham's purchase of the field of Machpelah. The people subject to Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country,' were dwellers in a city, and given to trade, as well as having flocks and herds. They seem to have been unused to war, and no match for the energy of Simeon and Levi. In the matter that led to the overthrow of this Hivite city we see an indication of the corn.iption that aftenvards became charac
teristic of the Canaanite tribes (Gen. xxxiii. 1S-2o; xxxiv.) Jacob's reproof of his sons seems to imply that the more powerful inhabitants of at least this part of the Promised Land were Canaanites and Pcrizzites, these only being mentioned as likely to attack him in revenge (xxxiv. 30). It is possible, but not certain, that there is a reference to this matter where Jacob speaks of a portion he gave to Joseph as having been taken by him in war from the Amorite (xlviii. 22), for his land at Shechem was given to Joseph, but it had been bought, and what Simeon and Levi seized was probably never claimed by Jacob, unless, indeed, the Hivites, who might possibly be spoken of as Amorites (but comp. xxxiv. 30), attempted to recover it by force. Per haps the reference is to some other occurrence. It seems clear, however, from the first of the pas sages just noticed (xxxiv. 30), that the Hivites ruled by Hamor were a small settlement. Soon after this it is mentioned that Esau took to wife a Hivite (xxxvi. 2), but the proposed reading Horite seems preferable (see ver. 25). In the enumerations of the nations of Canaan in the part of the Bible relating to the Exodus and to the conquest, the Hivites are not mentioned in an early position, and seem, therefore, to have been one of the less im portant tribes. At the time of the conquest, the Hivites of Gibeon, and three other cities in the neigh bourhood, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim, forming a confederacy, deceived the Israelites by means of travel-worn ambassadors, who feigned to have come from a great distance, and so secured a treaty. For their deceit they were required to be come servants for the altar. Thcir cities seem to have been given for the same service, for the Ark long remained at Kirjath-jearim, and the Taber nacle, after the Ark had been removed to Jerusalem, was raised at Giheon, where was the great high place.' Saul attempted to destroy the Gibeonites, and in consequence David gave up to them seven of his sons and grandsons to be put to death. If we hear of the Hivites again it is only as thc Nethinim, or people ` given' to the temple-service. The settlement in the south does not seem to have been large, though Gibeon was an important city (Josh. x. i, 2). It is also to bc noticed that this city was apparently not govemed by a king (/. c.), but by elders (ix. It), and that the confederacy seems to have been of the nature of a primitive federal re public, such as is not unfrequently found in Arabia (/. c.) In Joshua's time the Hivite dwelt under Hermon and in Mount Lebanon (xi. 3. ; Judg. 3), and when Joab numbered Israel, all the cities of the Hivite' seem to have bccn situate in the north of Palestine (2 Sam. xxiv. 7). This appears to have been the chief Hivite territory. If we may hazard a conjecture, the Hermonites may perhaps be a later name for the Hivites ; we recognize them in the Egyptian RemeNeN, and look in vain for any other trace of the Hivites in the conquests of the Pharaohs who passed through this tract.
There are few Hivite names recorded in Scrip ture. Hamor, the he-ass,' was probably an hon ourable name. Shechem, shoulder,' back,' may also be indicative of strength. Such names are suitable to a primitive people, but they are not sufficiently numerous or characteristic for us to be able to draw any sure inference. It is, indeed, possible that they may be connected, as the similar Hittite names seem to be, with low nature-worship. [HirrrrEs.] The names of the Hivite towns do not help us. Gibeon merely indicates lofty posi tion ; Kirjath-jearim, the city of the woods,' is interesting from the use of the word Kirjah, which we take to be probably a Canaanitish form : the other names present no special indications.
In the worship of Baal-berith, or Baal of the covenant,' at Shechem, in the time of the Judges, we more probably see a trace of the head-city of a Hivite confederacy than of an alliance between the Israelites and the Hivites.—R. S. P.