Arvad

A coastal site near Sidon whose people supplied Tyre with rowers and warriors. The name belongs to the Phoenician seaboard, and the kindred form Arvadite stands in the Canaanite genealogies.

In Tyre's Roster

Ezekiel's lament over Tyre catalogues the city's strength by listing the towns whose men served her. Arvad opens the list, paired with Sidon: "The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your rowers: your wise men, O Tyre, were in you, they were your pilots" (Eze 27:8). Arvad supplies the muscle at the oars; Tyre's own people remain the wise men and the pilots.

A few verses later Arvad reappears, this time on the ramparts. "The men of Arvad with your army were on your walls round about, and valorous men were in your towers; they hanged their shields on your walls round about; they have perfected your beauty" (Eze 27:11). The same place that crews her ships now mans her walls — and the shields they hang complete the city's beauty. Arvad's contribution to Tyre is double-sided, sea and stone.

The Arvadite in the Genealogies

The Table of Nations places the kindred form the Arvadite in the line of Canaan, beside the other Canaanite peoples: "and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanite spread abroad" (Ge 10:18). The Chronicler repeats the same listing: "and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite" (1 Ch 1:15-16). Arvad is therefore not an isolated maritime curiosity in Ezekiel's list — it carries a place in the genealogy of Canaan from the beginning.