The EAR of grain at the green, ripening stage — barley nearly ready but not yet hard. Exodus 9:31 uses it as a farmer would: the hail destroyed the barley 'for the barley was in the AVIV,' while the later wheat survived, a detail that quietly dates the plague to roughly late January or early February in Egypt. ⚠️ The word then becomes a MONTH: 'today you are going out, in the month of the AVIV' (Exodus 13:4), the month of the ripening ear, in which Passover falls and Israel is commanded to keep it forever (Deuteronomy 16:1). ⭐ The phrase chodesh ha-aviv, 'the month of Abib', stands in exactly FOUR verses of the Hebrew Bible — Exodus 13:4, 23:15, 34:18 and Deuteronomy 16:1 — and with that chapter all four are on these pages. After the exile the same month is called by its Babylonian name, NISAN. The barley that ripens in this chapter is the calendar the redemption is dated by. → first discussed at Exod 9:31