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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

HIVITES

Name of a pre-Israelite group living in Canaan. Though not yet discovered/rated archaeologically or from secular history as a people, they were regarded as emerging from a son of Canaan (Gn 10:17) and as inhabiting areas of the Lebanon Mountains (Jgs 3:3) and Mt Hermon (Jos 11:3). They are referred to frequently as a group dispossessed by Israel (Jos 12:8; 24:11; 1 Kgs 9:20) but who managed to survive into the kingdom period (2 Sm 24:7) and lived at that time near Tyre as well as in other possible areas. Some scholars think that an error in copying, involving the changing of the letters r (resh) to w (waw) was responsible for the origin of the name Hivite from Horite.

Others have suggested a scribal confusion of names, since Zibeon is called a Hivite in Genesis 36:2 and a Horite in verses 20 and 29. In several cases the Septuagint gives “Horite” in place of the Masoretic Text “Hivite” (Gn 34:2; Jos 9:7). Other passages in the Septuagint read “Hittite” rather than “Hivite” (Jos 11:3; Jgs 3:3).

The overlapping or equivalence of Hivite and Horite in Genesis 36 probably indicates some relationship between the two peoples (cf. Ishmaelites and Midianites in Gn 37:27-28, 36). Perhaps both Horites and Hivites are related to the Hurrians, who are well attested archaeologically.

The fact that there are some 25 occurrences of the name “Hivite(s)” in the OT, nearly one-third of which come in Joshua, makes it probable that they were a distinct people. Aside from Hivites in Palestine, they also appeared in Edomite territory (Gn 36:2). OT references to Hivites include Hamor (Gn 34:2), the men of Gibeon (Jos 9:7), the northern Hivites (Jgs 3:3-8), and those who lived near Tyre (2 Sm 24:7). During the reign of Solomon, the Hivites and other foreign inhabitants of the land were made slaves; that is, they were put under forced labor (1 Kgs 9:20-21; 2 Chr 8:7).