Hebrew word · H3529

כְּבָר

kevar

Chebar

Nahar is any large flowing watercourse: a natural river such as the Euphrates (often just "the River"), or a large canal. Kebar matches Akkadian nāru kabari, "the great canal" or "the Kabaru canal."

Appears 8 times in 8 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ Chebar = "far-off"

a Babylonian river near which many Israelite exiles settled; maybe the 'Habor' or the 'Royal Canal' of Nebuchadnezzar

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Ezekiel 1:1

Range of meaning

Nahar is any large flowing watercourse: a natural river such as the Euphrates (often just "the River"), or a large canal. Kebar matches Akkadian nāru kabari, "the great canal" or "the Kabaru canal."

Against the English

BSB and NIV "Kebar River"; KJV and WEB "river (of) Chebar"; ESV "Chebar canal." ESV's "canal" is the most accurate geographically. "River" is not wrong in Hebrew, but it suggests a natural river.

How it drifted

Readers sometimes mix up Kebar with the Habor (Khabur) River of 2 Kings 17:6, where Israelites from the north were deported in 722 BC. The two names are spelled differently (Habor begins with a different consonant, ḥet) and lie in different regions: the Habor is in northern Mesopotamia, Kebar in the south near Nippur.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Murashu business archive from Nippur (5th century BC) names the nāru kabari several times, putting it in the Nippur district. Ezekiel 3:15 names the exiles' settlement on it: Tel-abib, probably Akkadian til abūbi, "mound of the flood," an old ruin-mound.

Where it appears

Ezekiel · 8

  1. Ezekiel 1:1 כְּבָ֑ר Kebar

    In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles by the River Kebar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God.

    Here: A Babylonian place name, the nāru kabari ("the great canal"), attested in cuneiform tablets from around Nippur, southeast of Babylon.

  2. Ezekiel 1:3 כְּבָ֑ר Kebar

    the word of the LORD came directly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Kebar. And there the LORD’s hand was upon him.

    Here: Very probably the nāru Kabari ('Great Canal') named in Babylonian business documents from the Nippur area. Judean deportees were settled near it, at Tel-abib (3:15).

  3. Ezekiel 3:15 כְּבָר֙ Kebar

    I came to the exiles at Tel-abib who dwelt by the River Kebar. And for seven days I sat where they sat and remained there among them, overwhelmed.

  4. Ezekiel 3:23 כְּבָ֑ר Kebar

    So I got up and went out to the plain, and behold, the glory of the LORD was present there, like the glory I had seen by the River Kebar, and I fell facedown.

    Here: The Chebar watercourse near Nippur, where the exiles were settled and where Ezekiel's first vision happened (1:1). Naming it ties this experience to that one.

  5. Ezekiel 10:15 כְּבָֽר׃ Kebar

    Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the living creatures I had seen by the River Kebar.

  6. Ezekiel 10:20 כְּבָ֑ר Kebar

    These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the River Kebar, and I knew that they were cherubim.

  7. Ezekiel 10:22 כְּבָ֔ר Kebar

    Their faces looked like the faces I had seen by the River Kebar. Each creature went straight ahead.

  8. Ezekiel 43:3 כְּבָ֑ר Kebar

    The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when He came to destroy the city and like the visions I had seen by the River Kebar. I fell facedown,

    Here: The canal near Nippur where the exiles lived and where Ezekiel first saw God's glory (1:1–3; 3:15, 23).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.