(Tir·haʹkah).

Usually identified as Pharaoh Taharqa, although the dates generally assigned by modern historians to Taharqa’s rule do not fit Biblical chronology. (For evidence favoring Biblical chronology over the secular, see CHRONOLOGY [Bible Chronology and Secular History].) During Hezekiah’s reign, while Assyrian King Sennacherib was fighting against Libnah, news came that Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, was on his way to fight the Assyrians. (2Ki 19:8, 9; Isa 37:8, 9) An Assyrian inscription, though not mentioning Tirhakah, indicates that Sennacherib defeated the forces that came from Egypt and captured “the charioteers of the king of Ethiopia.” The next Assyrian king, Esar-haddon, boasted about his conquest of Egypt, saying: “Its king, Tirhakah, I wounded five times with arrowshots and ruled over his entire country.” During the reign of Esar-haddon’s son and successor Ashurbanipal, Tirhakah revolted against submission to Assyria. But, according to Ashurbanipal, “the terror of the (sacred) weapon of Ashur, my lord, overcame Tirhakah where he had taken refuge and he was never heard of again.”​—Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by J. Pritchard, 1974, pp. 287, 288, 290, 295.