NISROCH. An Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] deity in whose temple Sennacherib was worshipping when assassinated ( 2 Kings 19:37 , Isaiah 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.