CHEBAR:
Name of a Babylonian river or canal, by the side of which Ezekiel "saw visions" (Ezek. i. 1, 3; iii. 15, 23; x. 15 et seq.). The Hebrew "nahar" (
), usually rendered "river," was evidently used also for "canal" (= Babylonian "naru"; compare Ps. cxxxvii. 1, "naharoth Babel"; that is, "canals of Babylon"). In Babylonian, "Naru Kabaru" means, literally, "great canal." The river has usually been identified with the Chabor, a tributary discharging its waters into the Euphrates at Circesium; a mistake not to be justified in view of the definite statement that it was in the land of Chaldea. The stream intended is undoubtedly the Kabaru, a large navigable canal near Nippur, twice mentioned in an inscription recovered by the Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania (see Hilprecht and Clay, "Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania," ix. 50).
