Hebrew word · H8640

תִּרְהָקָה

tirhakah

Tirhakah

A personal name: Egyptian Taharqa, Assyrian Tarqû. He was a son of the Kushite king Piye and became pharaoh of Egypt and Kush in about 690 BC. He ruled until 664, when Assyrian invasions under Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal pushed him back south.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

A man living at the time of Divided Monarchy, first mentioned at 2Ki.19.9

§ Tirhakah = "he searched out the pious: he searched out the waiter"

king of Ethiopia and Egypt in the time of Sennacherib

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 2 Kings 19:9

Range of meaning

A personal name: Egyptian Taharqa, Assyrian Tarqû. He was a son of the Kushite king Piye and became pharaoh of Egypt and Kush in about 690 BC. He ruled until 664, when Assyrian invasions under Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal pushed him back south.

Against the English

All English versions transliterate the name. Two of them build interpretation into his description: the NIV calls him 'the Cushite king of Egypt', and the KJV and NLT say 'Ethiopia'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Egyptian monuments name him often. The Kawa stelae (IV and V) from Nubia say he came north to Egypt at about twenty years old, together with the reigning king and the army. Assyrian royal inscriptions from Esarhaddon's reign name him as an enemy. Sennacherib's account of the 701 campaign does not name the Kushite commander. It speaks only of 'the kings of Egypt' and the chariots and archers of 'the king of Meluhha', the Assyrian name for Kush.

Where it appears

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 19:9 תִּרְהָ֤קָה Tirhakah

    Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “Look, he has set out to fight against you.” So Sennacherib again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

    Here: The Hebrew form of Taharqa, a Kushite prince of Egypt's Twenty-fifth Dynasty. He was pharaoh from about 690 to 664 BC. He is the only Kushite ruler the Bible names.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 37:9 תִּרְהָ֤קָה Tirhakah

    Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” On hearing this, Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.