Aven
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(vanity, emptiness) (Amos 1:5) — a valley in Syria of Damascus, also called the valley of Lebanon, as it lay between two ranges of the Lebanon mountains; at present called el-Bukaa (Josh. 11:17). Here once stood the famous cities of Baalbek, or Heliopolis, in the north, and Baghdad [as given in the source] in the south, where once the worship of Baal reigned and many pagan temples stood; for this reason, probably, the prophet, foretelling the coming disasters upon the Syrians for their transgressions, calls their famous valley the valley of Aven, that is, the valley of vanity — pointing thereby, on the one hand, to the emptiness of their idols, and on the other, to the vanity of hopes placed in them. Its location, it is supposed, is marked by the ruins now found at Baalbek, some thirty English miles north of Damascus.