Hanes

A town on the frontiers of Ethiopia. Some have thought it the same as Tahapanes. (See Isa. xxx. 4. Jer. 2: 16.)

A city of Egypt, Isa 30:4, thought to be the modern Ehnes, in middle Egypt on the Nile.\par

Ha’nes. A place in Egypt mentioned only in Isa 30:4. We think that the Chaldean Paraphrased is right in identifying it with Tahpanhes, a fortified town on the eastern frontier.

Isa 30:4, the same as Tahpanhes or Daphne, a fortress on the N.E. frontier of Egypt, to which the Jews sent ambassadors with presents for the reigning Pharaoh (perhaps Zet or Sethos of the 23rd dynasty), as also to the neighbouring Zoan his capital. Gesenius, less probably, makes Hanes to be Heracleopolis, W. of the Nile in central Egypt.

City in Egypt to which the ambassadors of Israel were sent when they trusted in Egypt instead of in Jehovah. Isa 30:4. It was for long identified with Tahpanhes on the eastern frontier, but is now supposed to be the ancient Heracleopolis Magna, identified with Ahnas el Medeeneh, about seventy miles S.W. of Cairo.

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By: Emil G. Hirsch, M. Seligsohn

City in Egypt (Isa. xxx. 4); identified by Jonathan b. Uzziel and by the modern critics with Tahpanhes or Taphne (see Cheyne and Black, "Encyc. Bibl." s.v.).

HANES is associated with Zoan in a difficult context, Isa 30:4. Some would place it in Lower Egypt, with Anysis in Herodotus, and Khininshi in the annals of Ashurbanipal; but there can be little doubt that it is the Egyptian Hnçs (Heracleopolis Magna) on the west side of the Nile, just south of the Fayyum. Hnçs was apparently the home of the family from which the 22nd Dyn. arose, and the scanty documents of succeeding dynasties show it to have been of great importance: in the 25th and 26th Dyns. (c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 715–600) the standard silver of Egypt was specifically that of the treasury of Harshafe, the ram-headed god of Hnçs, and during the long reign of Psammetichus i. (c [Note: circa, about.] . 660–610) Hnçs was the centre of government for the whole of Upper Egypt. The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] does not recognize the name of the city, and shows a wide divergence of reading: ‘for there are in Tanis princes, wicked messengers.’

F. Ll. Griffith.

hā´nēz (חנס, ḥānēṣ): Occurs only in Isa 30:4. The one question of importance concerning this place is its location. It has never been certainly identified. It was probably an Egyptian city, though even that is not certain. Pharaoh, in his selfish haste to make league with the kingdom of Judah, may have sent his ambassadors far beyond the frontier. The language of Isa, “Their ambassadors came to Hanes,” certainly seems to indicate a place in the direction of Jerusalem from Tanis. This indication is also the sum of all the evidence yet available. There is no real knowledge concerning the exact location of Hanes. Opinions on the subject are little more than clever guesses. They rest almost entirely upon etymological grounds, a very precarious foundation when not supported by historical evidence. The Septuagint has, “For there are in Tanis princes, wicked messengers.” Evidently knowing no such place, they tried to translate the name. The Aramaic version gives “Tahpanhes” for Hanes, which may have been founded upon exact knowledge, as we shall see.

Hanes has been thought by some commentators to be Heracleopolis Magna, Egyptian Hunensuten, abridged to Hunensu, Copt Ahnes, Hebrew Ḥaneṣ, Arabic Ahneysa, the capital of the 20th Nome, or province, of ancient Egypt. It was a large city on an island between the Nile and the Bahr Yuseph, opposite the modern town of Beni Suef. The Greeks identified the ram-headed god of the place with Heracles, hence, “Heracleopolis.” The most important historical notes in Egypt and the best philological arguments point to this city as Hanes. But the plain meaning of Isa 30:4 points more positively to a city somewhere in the delta nearer to Jerusalem than Tanis (compare Naville’s cogent argument, “Ahnas el Medineh,” 3-4). Dumichen considered the hieroglyphic name of Tahpanhes to be Hens. Knowledge of this as a fact may have influenced the Aramaic rendering, but does not warrant the arbitrary altering of the Hebrew text.

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