(Heb. Abib', אָבַיב , from an obsolete root = אָבִב to fructify), properly, a head or ear of grain (Leviticus 2:14, "green ears;" Exodus 9:31, "ear"); hence, the month of newly-ripe grain (Exodus 13:4; Exodus 23:15; Exodus 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1), the first of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, afterward (Nehemiah 2:1) called NISAN (See NISAN) (q.v.). It began with the new moon of March, according to the Rabbins (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. Colossians 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 Exodus 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 (ἐπιφί, 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).