I. Name

The OT refers to the Tigris as Ḥiddeqel. The designation hannāhār haggādôl, “the Great River” was applied to the Tigris in Dan. 10.14, but otherwise refers to the Euphrates. The two rivers appear as a pair in the expression ʾaram naharayim, “the Land of the Two Rivers”, i.e. (Western) Mesopotamia.

Hebr Ḥiddeqel derives from an earlier Semitic form of the name which appears as Idiqlat in Akkadian, and Idigna in Sumerian. The female ending, characteristic of the Akkadian form, shows that…