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(Heb. Abib', àָáַéá , from an obsolete root = àָáִá to fructify), properly, a head or ear of grain (Lev_2:14, “green ears;” Exo_9:31, “ear”); hence, the month of newly-ripe grain (Exo_13:4; Exo_23:15; Exo_34:18; Deu_16:1), the first of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, afterward (Neh_2:1) called NISAN SEE NISAN (q.v.). It began with the new moon of March, according to the Rabbins (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. Col_3:1-25), or rather of April, according to Michaelis (Comment. de Alensibus Hebraeor., comp. his Commentat. Bremas, 1769, p. 16 sq.); at which time the first grain ripens in Palestine (Robinson's Researches, 2:99, 100). SEE MONTH. Hence it is hardly to be regarded as a strict name of a month, but rather as a designation of the season; as the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Saadias have well rendered, in Exo_13:4, the month of the new grain;” less correctly the Syriac, “the month of flowers” (comp. Bochart, Hieroz. 1:557). Others (as A. Muller, Gloss. Sacra, p. 2) regard the name as derived from the eleventh Egyptian month, Epep ( ἐðéöß , Plut. de Iside, p. 372); but this corresponds neither to March or April, but to July (Fabricii Menologium, p. 22-27; Jablonsky, Opusc. ed. Water, 1:65 sq.). SEE TEL-ABIB.