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Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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(אָב, prob. i. q. "the season of fruit, אָבַב מֵרָ to be fruitful, and apparently of Syriac origin, D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. s.v. comp. ABIB; Josephus, Ἀββά, Ant. 4, 4, 7), the Chaldee name of the fifth ecclesiastical and eleventh civil month of the Jewish year (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. Colossians 2:1-23); a name introduced after the Babylonian captivity, and not occurring in Scripture, in which this is designated simply as the fifth month (Numbers 33:38; Jeremiah 1:3; Zechariah 7:3, etc.). It corresponded with the Macedonian month Lous (Λῶος), beginning with the new moon of August, and always containing thirty days. The 1st day is memorable for the death of Aaron (Numbers 33:38); the 9th is the date (Moses Cozenzis, in Wagenseil's Sota, p 736) of the exclusion from Canaan (Numbers 14:30), and the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (Zechariah 7:5; Zechariah 8:19; comp. Reland, Antiq. Sacr. 4:10; but the 7th day, according to 2 Kings 25:8, where the Syriac and Arabic read 9th; also the 10th, according to Jeremiah 52:12, probably referring to the close of the conflagration, Buxtorf, Synog. Judenth. 35), and also by Titus (Josephus, War, 6:4, 5); the 15th was the festival of the Xylophoria, or bringing of wood into the Temple (Bodenschatz, Kirchlich, verfassung der Juden, 2:106; comp. Nehemiah 10:34; Nehemiah 13:31; on nine successive days, according to Otho, Lex. Rabb. p. 331; on the 14th, according to Josephus, War, 2:17); the 18th is a fast in memory of the extinction of the western lamp of the Temple during the impious reign of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 29:7). — Kitto, s.v. (See MONTH).