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Tahpanhes

• Today Tell Defenneh

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History

Tahpanhes, which the Greeks called Daphnae of Pelusium, is the mound of Tell Defenneh on the eastern edge of the Nile delta, close to the modern Suez Canal. It stood on the road from Egypt to Syria and Palestine. Herodotus says that Psammetichus, that is Psamtik I (664–610 BC), stationed a garrison at Daphnae against the Arabians and Assyrians, and that in his own day the Persians still kept an outpost there.

Flinders Petrie excavated the site in 1886. In the fort he found foundation deposits of Psamtik I, and so much Greek pottery, made by Greeks, that he judged the garrison and much of the town to have been Greek. The Bedouin called the ruin Qasr Bint el-Yehudi, the palace of the Jew's daughter. Petrie took a brick platform before the fort for the place at the entry of Pharaoh's house where Jeremiah was told to hide the stones, a link that cannot be proved.

Jeremiah tells Israel that "the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head". After Gedaliah was murdered, Johanan the son of Kareah and the captains led the remnant of Judah down to Egypt against Jeremiah's word, taking the prophet and Baruch with them, and they came to Tahpanhes. There Jeremiah was told to hide great stones in the clay at the entry of Pharaoh's house and to foretell that Nebuchadrezzar would set his throne upon them. Jews lived at Tahpanhes afterwards, and Ezekiel foretold that there also the day shall be darkened.

Josephus says that Nebuchadnezzar later fell upon Egypt and carried the Jews he found there to Babylon. Petrie concluded that Greek wares stopped coming early in the reign of Amasis, who made Naucratis the one port for Greek trade, and that an Egyptian and then a Persian garrison held the fort. In Ptolemaic times only a small settlement remained, and of the Roman period he found little more than scattered glass.

Scripture: Jer 2:16; Jer 41:18; Jer 43:2–7; Jer 43:8–10; Jer 44:1; Ezek 30:18

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (7)

Jer 2:16

Also the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head.

Jer 43:7

So they came into the land of Egypt: for they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: thus came they even to Tahpanhes.

Jer 43:8

Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying,

Jer 43:9

Take great stones in thine hand, and hide them in the clay in the brickkiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;

Jer 44:1

The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros, saying,

Jer 46:14

Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about thee.

Ezek 30:18

At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity.

King James Version

Tours through this place

• Jeremiah the prophet →
• The fall of Jerusalem and the exile →