Tir'zah (Heb. Tirtsah', n^nP, delight ; Sept. eeprrd V. r. [in the case of No. 2] OtpniXd and Ofp/ita ; Vulg,
I Thersa), the name of a woman and also of a place. See also Cypress; Tizite.
I 1. The last named of the five daughters of Zelophe- had, of the tribe of Manasseh, whose case originated the
TIRZAH
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law (bat in the event of a man dyinp; without male is- sue his property should pass to his (laMj;liiers (Xumb. xxvi, 33; xxvii. 1 ; xxxvi, 11 [where she is named sec- oiid] ; Josh, xvii, 3). See Zkloimikiiad.
2. An ancient Canaanitish city, whose king is enu- merated among the twenty-one overthrown in tlie con- (piest of the country (Josh, xii, 24). From that time nothing is heard of it till after the disruption of Israel and Judati. It then reappears as a royal city— the resi- dence of Jeroboatn (1 Kings xiv, 17; Sejjt, i:api*a, i. e. ? Ziiredd). and of liis successors, IJaasha (xv, 21,33), Elah (xvi, 8, !)), and Zimri (ver. 15). It contained the royal sepulchres of one (ver. (>), and probably all the first four kings of the northern kingdom. Zimri was besieged there by Omri, and perished in the flames of his palace (ver. 18). The new king continued to reside tiiere at first, but after six years he left it to his son Ahab ((J. v.), at that time raised to the viceroyship; and removed to a new city which he built and named Shomron ( Samaria ), and which continued to be the capital of the northern kingdom till its fall. Once, and once only, docs Tirzah reappear, as the seat of the con- spiracy of JMenahem bcn-(laddi against the wretched Shallum (2 Kings xv. 14. 10) ; but as soon as his revolt had proved successful, JMeuahem removed the seat of ids government to Samaria, and Tirzah was again left in obscurity. Its reputation for beauty throughout the country must have been wide-spread. It is in this sense that it is mentioned in the Song of Solomon, where the juxtaposition of Jerusalem is sufficient proof of the esti- mation in which it was held — "Beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem" (Cant, vi, 4). The Sept. {tvSoKia^ and Vulg. (^sii(irifi) do not, however, take (irisuh as a proper name in this passage. Its occurrence here on a level with Jerusalctn has been held to indicate that the Song of Songs was the work of a writer belonging to the northern kingdom. But surely a poet, and so ar- ttent a poet as the author of the Song of Songs, may have been sufficiently independent of political consider- ations to go out of his own country — if Tirzah can he said to be out of the countrj' of a native of Judah — for a metapiior. See Canticles.
Eusebius (Onomasf. s. v. BapmXa) mentions it in con- nection with Menahem, and identities it with a "village of Satnaritans in Batanaja." There is, however, nothing in the Bilde to lead to the inference that the Tirzah of the Israelitish monarchs was on the east of Jordan. Jo- scphus merely mentions it {Bapfft), A?if. viii, 12, 5). It is nowhere stated to what tribe this town belonged; but Adrichomius {Theat. T. S. p. 74) and others place it in jManasseh. Lightfoot ( Chorogrciph. Cent. c. 88 ) seems to suspect that Tirzah and Shechem were the same; for he says that "if Shechem and Tirzali were not one and the same town," it would appear that Jero- lioam had removed when his son died from where he was when he first erected his idols (conip. 1 Kings xii, 25; xiv, 17). It does not appear to be mentioned by the Jewish topograjJiers, or any of the Christian travel- lers of the iMiddle Ages, except Brocardus, who places '• Thersa on a high mountain, three leagues (Jeit&e) from Samaria to the east" {/h'scriptio Terra; Sancf. vii, 13). This is exactly the direction, and very nearly the dis- tance, of Telliizdh, a place in the mountains north of Nablus, which was visited by Ilobinson {liihl. Res.Vn, 302) and Van de Velde in 1852 {Sip: and Pal. iii, 334). The town is on an eminence, wliich towards the east is exceedingly lofty, though, being at the edge of the cen- tral highlands, it is more approachable from the west. The place is large and tliriving, but without any obvi- ous marks of antiquity (liobinson, Laltr Res. p. 302). Lieut. Conder. however, suggests the identity of Tirzah with a "mud hamlet" called Teidsir, twelve miles east of Jeba, which he foinid to have been once a place of importance, judging from the numerous rock-cut sepnl- clircs burrowing under the houses, the fertile lands and fine olives around, and the monument of good masonry, apparently a Konian tomb. The position is beautiful,
and the old main road leads to the place from Shechem i^TeiH-\V«rk ill I'alest. i, 108).