Ava

Ava is one of the source places from which the king of Assyria drew colonists to resettle the cities of Samaria after the deportation of the northern tribes. The same site is named in the Assyrian taunt-lists addressed to Hezekiah, where the UPDV spells it Ivvah; Ava and Ivvah are treated as the same district. The picture that emerges across these passages is of a town the Assyrians had conquered and from whose population they transplanted men into Samaria, carrying their gods with them.

A source of Samaria's resettlement

After Israel was carried away, the king of Assyria repopulated the depopulated north with men drawn from several conquered places, Avva among them. "And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the sons of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in its cities" (2Ki 17:24). The deportees from Avva are named in the same chapter as the Avvites, and they imported their own cult into the land: "and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their sons in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim" (2Ki 17:31). The UPDV thus links the place name Avva, the gentilic Avvites, and a pair of imported gods within a single narrative movement of resettlement and religious transplantation.

A city in the Assyrian taunt against Hezekiah

When Sennacherib's officers pressed Jerusalem to surrender, they catalogued cities whose gods had failed to save them, and they listed Ivvah alongside Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, and Hena. Rabshakeh asks, "Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?" (2Ki 18:34). The same place is named again in Sennacherib's written message: "Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" (2Ki 19:13). Isaiah's parallel of the letter repeats the list verbatim: "Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" (Isa 37:13). In each occurrence Ivvah stands among cities the Assyrians had reduced, used by the taunt as evidence that no local god could withstand them.

Ava and Ivvah as one place

AVA and IVAH are treated as a single district, and the UPDV's distribution of the two spellings tracks that identification: Avva appears in 2Ki 17:24 (the resettlement of Samaria) and the Avvites in 2Ki 17:31, while Ivvah carries the parallel taunt-formulae in 2Ki 18:34, 2Ki 19:13, and Isa 37:13. Across these passages the place is consistently associated with Hamath, Sepharvaim, and Hena, suggesting a town within the Assyrian sphere whose population could be moved as a unit and whose gods could be cited as among those defeated.