Havilah

Biblical References

Havilah appears several times in Genesis, 1 Samuel, and 1 Chronicles. It is used both as a place name and as a personal name.

• The land encompassed by a river of Eden: According to Genesis 2:11-12, the Pison, the first of the four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden, "compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold." The text adds that "the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone." Bdellium is thought to be either an aromatic resin or a pearl, and onyx is a type of precious stone.
• Son of Cush: In Genesis 10:7 and 1 Chronicles 1:9, Havilah appears as a son of Cush and a grandson of Ham.
• Son of Joktan: In Genesis 10:29 and 1 Chronicles 1:23, Havilah appears as a son of Joktan, a descendant of Shem. Ophir, famous for its gold, is listed alongside him.
• A boundary of Ishmaelite territory: Genesis 25:18 records that the descendants of Ishmael "dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria" (→ Hagar and Ishmael).
• Saul's campaign against Amalek: According to 1 Samuel 15:7, Saul "smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt."

Background

The Hebrew form of the name is Ḥăwîlâ (חֲוִילָה). Some connect it with a word meaning "sand," but this connection is uncertain.

In the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, personal names often also designate the region or tribe inhabited by that person's descendants. Havilah is therefore also read as the name of a region or tribe. Most scholars locate it somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, though opinions differ as to whether it lay in the northwest or the southwest, or across the Red Sea on the African side. Many interpreters regard the phrase "from Havilah … unto Shur" in Genesis 25:18 and 1 Samuel 15:7 as an idiomatic expression for the broad wilderness region stretching from northern Arabia to the Egyptian frontier on the Sinai Peninsula.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

In Genesis 2, Havilah is portrayed as a land rich in gold and precious stones. It forms part of the scene depicting the world God created as good and abundant even before human beings lived in it. In the genealogies, the name appears within the account of how the descendants of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, spread throughout the earth.

The name Havilah does not appear in the New Testament. Some interpreters see the gold and precious stones of Eden as anticipating the gold and precious stones adorning the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation (Revelation 21), and read this as a theme of creation's abundance being restored at the end.

Interpretation and Debates

• One Havilah or several: The same name appears in both the line of Ham (through Cush) and the line of Shem (through Joktan). Some take this to mean that peoples of different lineages lived intermingled in a single region, while others regard these as distinct regions that merely share a name. Whether the Havilah of Eden is the same place as the Havilah of the genealogies also remains undetermined.
• The location of Eden: Attempts to identify the Pison and Havilah with actual geography have a long history. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus is reported to have identified the Pison with the Ganges River in India. Others hold that the geography of Genesis 2 cannot be mapped directly onto a modern map, explaining either that the terrain was altered by Noah's flood or that the purpose of the text is not to provide geographical information.
• Distinguishing the text from later claims: In modern times, some have linked Havilah with particular gold-mining regions, but none of these proposals has been established by scholarship. Beyond stating that Havilah had gold and precious stones, the biblical text does not specify its location.