TEL-ABIB tĕl’ ə bĭb’ (תֵּ֣ל ֠אָבִיב). Tel-abib was a locality in Babylonia by the great irrigation canal, the Chebar. It was here that Ezekiel made his first contact with the Jewish exiles in 597 b.c., and he was constrained to share their despair and desolation before being permitted to speak to them (Ezek 3:15). The “tel” in the name suggests that the place was an ancient city site reduced to a mound (tel) by flood, decay, and long erosion. The name prob. means “hill of corn,” and modern Tel Aviv of Israel certainly bears this significance. In the Mesopotamian conquest it may be a rendering of Akkad. Til-abubi, “mound of the flood.”