TAPHNE (Hebr. Ταφρανάς; in Ez. 30:18 Τεφαρνάς). — Egyptian city (Ez. 30:18) where, after the assassination of Godolias, many Jews sought refuge in order to escape Babylonian reprisals (Jer. 43:7–9). There was probably already a Jewish colony there (ibid. 44:1; 46:14). The prophet Jeremiah, who, together with his secretary Baruch, had been forced to emigrate there, continued his mission there (ibid. 43:8) and, according to a late tradition, was killed there by the Jews themselves.
The city, which the Septuagint renders by the name Ταφναί or Ταφνάς (Vulgate T., Taphnis), probably corresponds to Δάφναι, an Egyptian fortress on the Pelusian canal of the Nile (Herodotus, II, 30, 107), identified with Tell ed-Defeneh, northeast of the Delta.
BIBL.: F. Vigouroux, Taphnis, Taphnis, in DB, V (1912), cols. 1991–94; A. Alt, Taphnasen und Taphnas, in Zeitschr. des Deutsch. Palästina-Vereins, 66 (1943), pp. 64–68. Donato Baldi