ABANA (Hebrew 'Abhānāh "Stony", from 'eben "Stone"). - River of Damascus, mentioned by the Syrian general Naaman (II Kings 5:12), who contrasts its importance with the modest course of the Jordan. Some manuscripts, the qērē of the Masoretic text and the Syriac version read 'Amanah (whence the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 8ᵃ: 'Amanon), because the mountain from which it comes is the Amānāh of Song 4:8. The Septuagint, like the Vulgate, has 'Aβᾶνα (A Ναεβᾶνα, L Αβᾶνα).
The A. is to be identified with the Nahr Baradā. The Arabic version of II Kings 5:12 gives Barda (Stephen of Byzantium: Βαρδίνης ποταμός), that is, "the cold one." By the Greeks (Ptolemy V, 15; Strabo) it is called, like the Nile, Chrysorrhōas "golden stream," on account of the fertility it procures for the Damascene region, which may be called "the gift of the Barada." The Barada springs on the Amānāh (in the Assyrian annals of the 8th century B.C. Am-mana), today Gebel Zebdâni (m. 1066) in the Anti-Lebanon, crosses ancient Abila (Sûq Wadî-Baradâ) and, having received the copious tributary 'Aîn Figch (Gk. Πηγή "spring"), skirts Damascus on the north. Having branched (one branch is called today Nahr Bauias, a vestige of the ancient name), it empties, about 20 km. from Damascus, into Lake Bahrat el-'Atêbe. From remote antiquity the A. irrigated the plain with many canals derived from it, of which seven were the principal ones.
The Pharphar ("swift"?), which Naaman associates with the A., is the present-day Nahr el-A'nağ, which descends from Mount Hermon (v.) and empties into Lake Bahrat el-Higâne.