Avim

wicked or perverse men

a people descended from Hevus, the son of Canaan. They dwelt at first in the country which was afterward possessed by the Caphtorims, or Philistines. The Scripture says expressly, that the Caphtorims drove out the Avims, who dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, Deut. ii, 23. There were also Avims, or Hivites, at Shechem, or Gibeon, Joshua xi, 19; for the inhabitants of Shechem were Hivites. Lastly, there were some of them beyond Jordan, at the foot of Mount Hermon. Bochart thinks, that Cadmus, who conducted a colony of the Phœnicians into Greece, was a Hivite. His name, Cadmus, comes from the Hebrew _Kedem_, “the east,” because he came from the eastern parts of the land of Canaan. The name of his wife Hermione was taken from Mount Hermon, at the foot whereof the Hivites dwelt. The metamorphoses of the companions of Cadmus into serpents is founded upon the signification of the name of Hivites, which, in the Phœnician language, signifies _serpents_.