HEVEI (Heb. hā-hīwvī, always with the article and in the singular; Septuagint: ô Ewāōs, sometimes ôi Ewāōs), - A people settled in the land of Canaan and always included in the list of the peoples inhabiting 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 Sam. 9:29; 2 Chron. 8:7; V. CANAAN).
As a distinct group, the H. appear in Shechem in the time of Jacob (Gen. 33:18; 34:2); their descendants continued to influence the life of the land even after the conquest (Judg. 3:28). In Gibeon they formed a confederation of cities ruled by elders, and by a stratagem obtained a treaty of friendship with the Israelites, but when the deception was discovered, they were condemned to the menial 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), where they had their own villages until the time of David (2 Sam. 24:7). Along with the other Canaanite peoples remaining in the land, they were forced by Solomon’s time to provide labor for his great building projects (1 Kings 20:22; 2 Chron. 8:7–8) and were gradually absorbed into Israel.
The hypothesis that the biblical H. represent a group of the Hurrian people (v. HURRITES) is still debated. The fact that in Gen. 36:2 hā-hīwvī is read (in vv. 20, 29) as hā-hōrī and that the Septuagint renders hā-hīwvī (in Gen. 34:2; Josh. 9:7; 11:3; Judg. 3:3) as χορφῶς πυρὶ arises from an easy confusion of the second letter, but according to E. Speiser, this suggests an original hā-hōrī. However, he believes that, because of popular etymology (Hōrīti = inhabitants of caves), the original reading was replaced by hā-hīwvī, a term hypothetically linked to Hurrian. W. F. Albright, with greater probability, considers the biblical tradition of the real distinction between the two peoples to be historical, but acknowledges that, due to the similarity of the letters, they were often confused and exchanged by copyists. He 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-hīwvī in the south (Gen. 36:20; Deut. 2:12–22). Thus, the biblical picture should be reversed, replacing the Hōrīti of the south with the H. and vice versa.