Ayya, avyim, ayyites

The spelling Avim, Avites is incorrect. 1. A people which lived in villages near Gaza, and was super- seded by the Ca|)htorite Philistines (Dt 2^). In the Sept. their name is confounded with that of the Hivvites, and some scholars have regarded them as a branch of the Hivvites. That they were not so, but wore of the giant peoples of Pal.

, is rendered probable by two considerations: (1) they are spoKen of in Dt 2 precisely as are the other giant ])eople8, except that they are not ex- pressly said to be rcpluiim ; (2) the name is uniformly used in the jilural ('the Avvim,' that is, the Avvites, not the Avvite), a usage by which the Philistines as a whole, and the several giant peoples, are distinguished from the Can. peoples. That they once had possessions in the mount.

ain country, as well as near Gaza, may be probably inferred from the fact that one of the towns of lienjaniin was called 'the Avvim' (Jos IS^"). The statement that the Cai>litorim destroyed them does not neces-sarily imj)ly that they were then exter- minated ; and we lind them mentioned among the peoples that Joshua failed to conquer, along with the Philistines but not of them, the Avvites going along with the Gazite, the Gittite, the Ekronite, etc. (Jos 13'). Presumably, the.

se Avvim are to be identified with the Anakim who were left over in Gaza, Gath, and ."Vslukxl (Jo., II, ), and were the ancestors of the gianU of David's time. See Giant, liKPiiAiM. AX, aXE 205 2. People from Avva (cf. hT-ah, 2 K 18" 19", Is 37"), whom the kin<; of Assyria settled in N. Israel after the capture of Samaria, and who set up idol- atrous worship there (2 K H**-")- W. J. Beecher. AYYIM (o>'a), Jos 18".— A town of Benjamin, unknown. See preceding art.