Greek word · G2582
Κανδάκη
kandakē
Candace
The Greek form of a Meroitic royal title (kdke/ktke, often written kandake or kentake today) for the queen or queen mother of Kush. Several such women ruled in their own right.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
The Greek form of a Meroitic royal title (kdke/ktke, often written kandake or kentake today) for the queen or queen mother of Kush. Several such women ruled in their own right.
- Against the English
English 'Candace' reads like a personal name, and it has even become a modern girl's name. NIV and NLT render it as 'the Kandake' to signal a title.
- How it drifted
Greek and Roman writers themselves took the title for a name: Pliny says 'a woman Candace' rules, 'a name that has passed down to the queens for many years now' (Natural History 6.186). The English tradition kept it as a name.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Strabo (17.1.54) and Dio Cassius (54.5.4) describe the war between Rome and 'Candace', queen of the Ethiopians, about 25–22 BC; Augustus mentions the campaign in his Res Gestae (26). Meroitic inscriptions and royal pyramids record ruling queens (for example Amanirenas, Amanishakheto, Amanitore). Some ancient sources say the title belonged to the king's mother. Which queen held it in the 30s AD is uncertain.
Where it appears
Acts · 1
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Acts 8:27 Κανδάκης of Candace
So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship,
Here: Not a personal name but the Greek form of a royal title of Kush (Meroitic *kdke/ktke*) for its queen or queen mother; Greek and Roman writers took it for a name. In effect: 'of the Kandake'.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.