Tahpenes

Biblical Account

Tahpenes was the queen of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and appears in 1 Kings 11. Her name occurs in only two verses, 1 Kings 11:19-20.

The passage belongs to the story of Hadad the Edomite, an adversary of Solomon. According to 1 Kings 11:14-22, Hadad was of the Edomite royal line and fled to Egypt as a young child when Joab, the commander of David's army, struck down every male in Edom. Hadad found great favor with Pharaoh, who gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes (1 Kings 11:19). When she bore Hadad a son, Genubath, Tahpenes weaned the child in Pharaoh's house. Genubath thereafter lived in Pharaoh's household among the sons of Pharaoh (1 Kings 11:20). The text says nothing further about Tahpenes.

Significance in Scripture

Tahpenes is not a central figure in the narrative. Her name appears in a passage showing that the exile Hadad enjoyed such strong patronage that he was joined to the Egyptian royal house by marriage. First Kings presents Hadad as an adversary whom God raised up after Solomon followed foreign women in serving other gods (1 Kings 11:14). Tahpenes is not mentioned in the New Testament.

Interpretation and Issues

• Which Pharaoh's queen: The text does not name the Pharaoh. Some scholars identify him with one of the kings of Egypt's Twenty-first Dynasty, but no identification has been established.
• Meaning of the name: The Hebrew text calls Tahpenes the gebirah, a term for a woman of high rank, such as a queen or the king's mother. Some scholars have proposed that the name "Tahpenes" derives from an Egyptian title meaning "wife of the king," but this too is conjectural.
• Distinction from the place name: In Korean, the name is spelled similarly to Tahpanhes, an Egyptian city mentioned in Jeremiah and elsewhere. However, Tahpanhes is a place and Tahpenes is a person, so the two are treated as distinct terms.

In the Korean Church

Tahpenes is rarely treated on her own in sermons or Sunday school materials. She is usually mentioned only as part of Hadad's background in discussions of the adversaries Solomon faced in his later years (1 Kings 11).