ABANA (Heb. 'abhānāh “stony,” from 'ebhen “stone”). - A river of Damascus, mentioned by the Syrian general Naaman (II Reg. 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 rises is the Amānāh of Cant. 4, 8. The Septuagint, like the Vulgate, has 'Aβᾶνα (A Ναεβᾶνα, L Αβᾶνα).
A. is to be identified with the Nahr Baradā. The Arabic version of II Reg. 5, 12 gives Barda (Stefano di Bisanzio: Βαρδίνης ποταμός), that is, “the cold one.” By the Greeks (Ptolemy V, 15; Strabo) it is called, like the Nile, Chrysorrhōas, “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 Amānāh (in the Assyrian annals of the 8th century B.C., Am-
mana), today Gebel Zebdâni (1,066 m.) in the Anti-Lebanon; it passes through ancient Abila (Sûq Wadî-Baradâ) and, having received the abundant tributary 'Aîn Figch (Greek Πηγή, “spring”), skirts Damascus to the north. After branching off (one branch is now called Nahr Bauias, a vestige of the ancient name), it flows, about 20 km. from Damascus, into Lake Bahrat el-'Atêbe. From remote antiquity A. irrigated the plain by means of many canals derived from it, seven of which were the principal ones.
The Pharphar (“swift”?) which Naaman associates with A., is the present-day Nahr el-A'nağ, Hermon (v.) and flows into Lake Bahrat el-Higâne.