ABANA (Hebrew *ābhānāh* «stony», from *'ébben* «stone»). — A river of Damascus, mentioned by the Syrian general Naaman (*2 Kgs* 5:12), who contrasts its importance with the modest flow of the Jordan. Some manuscripts, the *qērē* of the Masoretic text, and the Syriac version read *'Amanah* (hence the Babylonian Talmud, *Gittin* 8a: *'Amanon*), because the mountain from which it originates is the Amānah of *Song* 4:8. The Septuagint, like the Vulgate, has *'Apóva* (A. Naevava, L. Apóva).
A. is to be identified with the *Nahr Baradā*. The Arabic version of *2 Kgs* 5:12 places *Barda* (Stephanus of Byzantium: *Bapdīvng* *πιστὰς*), i.e., «the cold». The Greeks (Ptolemy V, 15; Strabo) call it, like the Nile, *Chrysorrhōs* «golden stream» because of the fertility it brings to the Damascene region, which may be called the «gift of the Barada». The Barada rises on the A-mānāh (in Assyrian annals of the 8th century B.C. *Am-mana*), today Gebel Zebdāni (m. 1066) in the Anti-Lebanon, passes through ancient Abila (Sīq Wadi-Baradā), and, after receiving the copious tributary 'Ain Figch (Gr. Πηγή «spring»), skirts Damascus to the north. It then branches out (one branch today is called Nahr Banias, a vestige of the ancient name) and empties, about 20 km from Damascus, into Lake Baḥrat el-'Atēbe. From remote antiquity, A. has irrigated the plain with many derived canals, seven of which were the principal ones.
The Pharphar (q.V. swift), which Naaman associates with A., is the modern Nahr el-'A'uag, which descends from Hermon (q.v.) and empties into Lake Baḥrat el-Hiġāne.