Georff. ii, 448 ; Lucan. vii, 230, 5 14) . The present Jedut probably comprehends the whole or greater part of the proper Itur.-ea. This is described by Burckhardt {Syria, p. 286) as "lying south of Jebelkessoue, east of Jebel es- Sheik (Mount Hermon), and west of the Haj road." It is bounded on the east by Trachonitis, on the south by Gaulanitis, on the west by Hermon, and on the north by the i)lain of Damascus. It is table-land, with an undu- lating surface, and has little conical and cup-sha]3ed hills at intervals. The southern section of it has a rich soil, well watered by numerous springs, and streams from Hermon. The greater part of the northern section is entirely different. The surface of the ground is cover- ed with jagged rocks, in some jilaces heaped up in huge piles, in others simk into deep pits ; at one place smooth and naked, at another seamed with yawning chasms, in whose rugged edges rank grass and weeds spring up. The rock is all basalt, and the formation similar to that oftheLejah. See Akgob. The molten lava seems to liave issued from the earth through innumerable pores, to have spread over the plain, and then to have been rent and shattered while cooling (Porter, Handhool; p. 465). Jedur contains thirty-eight towns and villages, ten of which are now entirely desolate, and all the rest contain only a few families of poor peasants, living in wretched hovels amid heaps of ruins (Porter, Damascus, ii, 272 sq.). See Robinson, Bib. Res. Appendix, p. 149; Jour, Sac. Lit. July, 1854, p.311.
Itzchaki, also called Ben-Jasus, and by the long Arabic name of Abu Ibrahim Isaac Ibn-Kastar (or Salc- tur) ben-Jasus, a Jewish philosopher of great celebrity, and commentator, was born A.D. 982 at Toledo. Like many other Jewish savans, he followed the medical pro- fession, and so distinguished liimself that he was ap- pointed physician to the princes of Denia and IMug'aliid, and to Ali Ikbal Addaula. He died in 1057. Itzchaki wrote (1) a Hebrew granjmar, called D"'S'111Jn "ISO, The Book of Syniax ; and (2) on Biblical criticism, called "ipn:!-! "ISO, The Work of Itzchaki. Neither of these works is now known to us, but from Aben-Ezra, who quotes them, we learn that Itzchaki was one of the earliest assailants of the Mosaic authorship of some por- tions of the Pentateuch. Thus he is said to have main- tained that the portion in the Pentateuch which describes the kings of Idumsea (Gen. xxxvi, 30, etc.) was written many centuries after IMoses (comp. Aben-Ezra, Commen- taries on Gen. xxxvi, 30, 31 ; Xumb. xxiv, 17; Jfos. i, 1). See Gratz, Geschichfe der Jiiden,\\, 53; Zeitschrift der deutsch. morfjenl. Gesellsch. 1854, p. 551 ; 1855, p. 838.
Itzchaki, Solomon. Sec Rasiii.
I'vah (Ueh. Ivvah', n^", for n'i", m-ro^', an orer- turning or ruin, as in Ezek. xxi, 32 ; Sept. 'Aova, but in Isa. xxxvii, 13, unites with the preced. word into 'Ava- eyyovyava), a citj' of the Assyrians whence they brought colonists to repeople Samaria (2 Kings xviii, 34 ; xix, 13 ; Isa. xxxvii, 13, where it is mentioned in connection with Hena and Sepharvaim ; also in the cognate form "Ava," 2 Kings xvii, 24, where it stands in connection with Babylon and Cuthah). Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that the site must be sought in Babylonia, and that it is probably identical with the modem Ilif, which is the "If of Herodotus (i, 179), a place famous for bituminou-s springs (see Rich, First Memoir on Bah/Ion, p. 64, and Ch^sn^y, Euphrates Expedition, i, 55). This town lay on the Euphrates, between Sippara (Sepharvaim) and Anah (Hena), with which it seems to have been politi- cally united shortly before the time of Sennacherib (2 Kings xix, 13). He also regards it as probably the Ahava (U^O.N:) of Ezra (viii, 15). He believes the name to have been originally derived from that of a Babylonian god, Ira, who represents the sky or .Ether, and to whom the town is supposed to have been dedi- cated (Rawlinson, Herodotus, 1, 606, note). In the Tal- mud the name appears as Ihih (S^iT), whence might
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