HEVITES (Heb. hā-hīwāš always with the article and in the singular; Septuagint ὁ Εὐαῖος, sometimes οἱ Εὐαῖοι). - A people settled in the land of Canaan and always included in the list of the whole group of peoples dwelling in the land before the Israelite conquest (Ex. 2, 11; 3, 8; 13, 5; 23, 28; Deut. 7, 1; 20, 17; Josh. 3, 10; 9, 1; 12, 8; 24, 11; Judg. 3, 5; 2 Kings 9, 29; 2 Chron. 8, 7; v. CANAAN).
As a distinct group, the H. appear in Shechem at the time of Jacob (Gen. 33, 18; 34, 2); their descendants influenced the life of the land even after the conquest (Judg. 3, 28). In Gibeon they formed a confederation of 4 cities governed by elders, and by a stratagem obtained a treaty of friendship with the Israelites, but, once the deceit was discovered, they were obliged to the humble services of woodcutters and water-carriers (Josh. 9, 7; 11, 19). Another important center was in the north at the foot of Mount Hermon (Josh. 11, 3; Judg. 3, 3), and they had villages of their own there until the time of David (2 Sam. 24, 7). With the other Canaanite peoples remaining in the land, they were compelled in the time of Solomon to lend their labor for the great constructions (1 Kings 20, 22; 2 Chron. 8, 7-8) and little by little were absorbed into Israel.
Still debated is the hypothesis that sees in the H. of the Bible a group of the Hurrian people (v. HURRITES). The fact that in Gen. 36, 2 hā-hīwāš is read (in vv. 20, 29) as hā-hōrī and that the Septuagint translates hā-hīwāš (in Gen. 34, 2; Josh. 9, 7; 11, 3; Judg. 3, 3) as χορραῦος may come from an easy confusion of the second letter, but, according to E. Speiser, it presupposes an original hā-hōrī. Nevertheless he thinks that by reason of popular etymology (Hōriti = cave-dwellers) the original reading was replaced with hā-hīwāš, a hypothetical Hurrian clan. W. F. Albright, with greater probability, holds the biblical tradition of the real distinction of the two peoples to be historical, but acknowledges that, because of the similarity of the letters, they were often confused and interchanged by copyists, and suggests reading hā-hōrī in the texts of Shechem and Tyre (Gen. 36, 2; Josh. 9, 7; 11, 3; Judg. 3, 3; 2 Sam. 24, 7) and hā-hīwāš in the south (Gen. 36, 20; Deut. 2, 12-22). The biblical picture should thus be reversed, substituting the H. for the Hōriti of the south and vice versa.
Bibliography2 works
Donato Baldi