Bede, on 2Kgs 18:34

“Where is the god of Emath, and of Arphad? where is the god of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?”

“"Where is the god of Hemath and Arphad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim?" [2 Kings 18:34] Rabsheh said this among other things with which he blasphemed God, crying out against Jerusalem: Where is the god of Hemath and Arphad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim, Ana and Ava? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? He showed that the Samaritans served the gods of all these cities or nations, and that they were not gods but idols, rightly subverted as those who worshipped vanity deserved. Hemath is a city of Coele-Syria, which is now called Epiphania, near Emesa, as we previously noted; Arphad is a city of Damascus, which Jerome also writes was conquered by the king of Assyria (Jeremiah 40). Sepharvaim, in the plural, means books or letters, is the name of places from which the Assyrians who were moved settled in Samaria, as we find in the Books of Places. In Isaiah, however, this term also appears to be a city name, where it is clearly said: Where is the god of the city of Sepharvaim? (Isaiah 37). Although it is said in the plural, like Thebes or Athens. For Ana and Ava, the old edition placed the name Aneugava as if it were one city, and indeed it is written so in Hebrew; but since the syllable u in the middle of the name signifies a conjunction, it may also be distinguished as Ana and Gava, as Aquila translated; or Ana and Ava, as our translator rendered.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.