ACCAD or AKKAD (Archad, Septuagint, or in some manuscripts, Achad).

By: Robert W. Rogers, Louis Ginzberg

Word occurring once in the Old Testament (Gen. x. 10), as the name of a city; one of the four cities which formed the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod. The exact location is unknown. On the Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets Akkad appears as the name of a city, and also in an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I. (about 1135 B.C.), but the connection in which it occurs gives no hint of its locality or history. See "Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek," iii. 170, 171. Some critics are inclined to identify this place with the city of Agade in northern Babylonia, of which Sargon I. was king about 3800 B.C., but there is no positive proof that the two are identical. The word Akkad, as used both by Assyrians and Babylonians, occurs most frequently as a part of a royal title much affected both in early and in later periods. In the early inscriptions it is lugal Kengi (Ki) Uri (Ki), which appears in Semitic in the form shar (mát) Shumēri u (mát) Akkadi; that is, king of Sumer and Accad. There has been much controversy in recent times regarding the exact meaning of this title, and it can hardly be said that a conclusive decision has yet been reached (see Babylonia). It is at least reasonably clear that both the Babylonian and Assyrian kings who bore it claimed, by its use, to govern the whole of Babylonia. In this use Accad designates northern Babylonia, and Sumer southern Babylonia.

The old Jewish traditions differ as to the identity of Accad. According to the Palestinian tradition (Targ. Yer. i. and ii. to Gen. x. 10, Gen. R. xxxvii.), Accad is identical with Nisibis. Jerome and Ephraem Syrus, in their commentaries on the passage, accept this view. The Babylonian authorities considered Accad to be the city of Bashkar (or Kashkar; see Rabbinowitch, "Diḳduḳe Soferim" to Yoma, 10a, note 10; Jastrow, "Dict." p. 676), mentioned several times in the Talmud (e.g., Yoma, 10a). Its situation, however, is unknown.