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NISROCH.—An Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] deity in whose temple Sennacherib was worshipping when assassinated (2Ki_19:37, Isa_37:38).
Gesenius compared the name with the Arabic nisr (‘eagle), and conjectured that it referred to one of the eagle-headed divinities that appear in the bas-reliefs. In later times attempts have been made to identify Nisroch with Nusku (the fire-god)—whose name would naturally be most familiar in the construct form Nusuk,—and even with Marduk. But Nusku did not at this period occupy a sufficiently prominent position in the Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] pantheon; and the idea of Marduk, the great god of Babylon, being the patron of Sennacherib, the arch-enemy of that city, is manifestly incongruous. The deity that should logically hold this place is Ashur. Accordingly Prince suggests that Nisroch is a hybrid form due to a confusion of Ashur with Nusku. But comparison with the Greek forms seems to indicate that the original reading was something similar to Asorach. This Schrader explains as Ashurach, a hypothetical lenghtened form of Ashur. And Meinhold conjectures a compound (Ashur-Aku) of Ashur with Aku, the Sumerian name of the moon-god, whose Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] name Sin is an element in the name Sennacherib.
W. M. Nesbit.