TIRHAKAH tûr hā’ kə (Heb. תִּרְהָ֤קָה), a pharaoh of the twenty-fifth or Ethiopian dynasty, his throne name on his temples at Kawa in the Sudan is Khunefertēmrē’taharqa. The short form, T’ rw q gave rise to the Assyrian form, Tarqu and the Gr. Τάρκιος, as recorded in Manetho’s list. Egypt had been divided into a number of feudal cities and cult centers by the middle of the 8th cent. b.c., however about 730 b.c. the Sudanese chieftain Pi’ankhy conquered much of Egypt and assumed the unified throne as Pharaoh. After Pi’ankhy’s death his brother Shabako, with some difficulty, ascended the throne for fifteen years until approximately 695 b.c. He was followed by his nephew, the son of Pi’ankhy, Shebitku, who reigned for only three years before the accesion of his younger brother, Tirhakah, in 689 b.c. He was crowned at Memphis and then refurbished the temple of Amen-Rē’ at Kawa. Subsequently he carried on campaigns against the pretenders to the throne in the delta region. He was fairly respected by his Egyp. subjects and was able to maintain some degree of order sufficient to build and restore temples and other buildings at Karnak and Medînet Habu. When the rampaging Assyrian king Sennacherib (705-681 b.c.) began his campaigns in Syria and threatened Hezekiah in Jerusalem, the Jews appealed to Egypt for aid (Isa 36:6; 2 Kings 18:21). They were warned by the prophet that Egypt could not save Judah.

In comparison of the three sets of documents, the annals of Sennacherib and Tirhakah along with the Biblical record, several involved chronological problems appear. These difficulties have been the subject of considerable discussion and most critical scholars have been quite satisfied to assume that the Biblical account was in error. The solution to the problem has long been thought to be a second campaign of Sennacherib into the western areas of Asia Minor. Another solution would be found if Tirhakah were, in fact, acting under his brother’s name and reign in his encounter with Sennacherib at Eltekeh where a goodly portion of the combined Egyp. and Ethiopian force was annihilated. It is more likely that Sennacherib was victorious at Eltekeh in 700 b.c., and that he moved on Hezekiah in Jerusalem and Tirhakah sometime about 689/688 b.c. The interesting account given by Sennacherib appears in ANET 287ff. The Biblical account is the familiar passage of 2 Kings 19 and 20, while Herodotus spins a fantastic tale about the incidents in Histories II, 141. Sennacherib’s successor and son, Esarhaddon (680-669 b.c.) again conquered Syria and campaigned against Tirhakah. His stela found at Senjirli states, “I fought daily very bloody battles against Tarqu, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, the one cursed by all the great gods” (after A. L. Oppenheim tr. in ANET, 293). After the death of Esarhaddon in Harran, Tirhakah returned to occupy most of his former domain. Ashurbanipal, the son and heir of Esarhaddon, had been previously designated the new king. In his first campaign begun in 667 b.c. he again invaded Egypt and recorded the conditions on the cylinder discovered by Rassam at Kuyunjik. After this pursuit Tirhakah does not seem to have recovered his sovereign position and he fled to his native southland, to his city of Napata where he died and was buried at Nûri. His name appears in the OT only in Isaiah 37:9 and 2 Kings 19:9.

Bibliography M. F. L. Macadam, The Temples of Kawa, I (1949); J. Vandier, Manuel d’Archéologie Égyptienne, Vol. II (1955) 970, 971; H. von Zeissl, Äthiopen und Assyrer in Ägypten (1955); A. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (1961), 335-351.