Tahpens
Tah'pen's (Heb. Tachpeneys', תִּחפּנֵיס, evidently of Egyptian origin, but uncertain in its signification, SEE TAHPANHES; Sept. Θεκεφένης v.r. Θεκεμίνα; Vulg. Taphnes), a proper name of an Egyptian queen. She was wife of the Pharaoh who received Hadad the Edomite, and who gave him her sister in marriage (1Ki 11:18-20). B.C. cir. 1000. In the Sept. the latter is called the elder sister of Thekemina, and in the addition to ch. 12 Shishak (Susakim) is said to have given Ano, the elder sister of Thekemina his wife, to Jeroboam. It is obvious that this and the earlier statement are irreconcilable, even if the evidence from the probable repetition of an elder sister be set aside, and it is scarcely necessary to add that the name of Shishak's chief or only wife, Karaamat, does not support the Sept. addition. SEE SHISHAK. There is therefore but one Tahpenes or Thekemina. At the time to which the narrative refers there were probably two, if not three, lines ruling in Egypt-the Tanites of the twenty-first dynasty in the lower country; the high-priest kings at Thebes, but possibly they were of the same line; and perhaps one of the last faineants of the Rameses family. To the Tanitic line, as apparently then the most powerful, and as holding the territory nearest Palestine, the Pharaoh in question, as well as the father-in-law of Solomon, probably belonged. If Manetho's list be correct, he may be conjectured to have been Psusennes. SEE PHARAOH, 9. No name that has any near resemblance to either Tahpenes or Thekemina has yet been found among those of the period (see Lepsius, Konigsbuch).
