Ivah

Ivah (also Ivvah, Avva) is a district near Babylon that comes into the biblical record twice: once as a source of foreign settlers transplanted into Samaria after the fall of the northern kingdom, and again as one item in the Assyrian Rabshakeh's taunt-list of cities whose gods could not save them from Assyria.

A Babylonian District Resettled into Samaria

After deporting the northern tribes, the king of Assyria repopulated Samaria with peoples from his own empire: "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" (2Kings 17:24). Avva is grouped with other Mesopotamian and Syrian cities whose populations the Assyrians moved at will.

A Conquered City in the Rabshakeh's Taunt

The same place reappears, spelled Ivvah, in the speech the Rabshakeh delivers at the wall of Jerusalem during Sennacherib's campaign. The boast catalogues cities Assyria has already overrun and asks why Yahweh should be expected to do better than their gods. "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?" (2Kings 18:34). The same list is repeated in Sennacherib's follow-up letter: "Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" (2Kings 19:13). Isaiah preserves the parallel form of the letter: "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).

The two sets of references hold together: Avva / Ivvah is a district swallowed up by Assyrian conquest, its people resettled in Samaria, and its gods invoked by Assyrian propaganda as proof that no local deity can withstand the empire.