Tartak

Tartak is named once in the UPDV — as one of the two gods the Avvite component of the resettled population of Samaria fabricated for itself after the Assyrian deportation, paired throughout that scene with Nibhaz.

One of the Avvite-Made Gods

The setting is the policy of nation-by-nation idol-making that took hold among the peoples Assyria had brought in to replace the deported northern tribes: "Nevertheless every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they dwelt" (2Ki 17:29). The roster that follows assigns each resettled group its own pair of idols: "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their sons in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim" (2Ki 17:30-31). Tartak stands second in the Avvite pair. The roster places the figure at the same level as the gods of Babylon, Cuth, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and the immediately following clause about the Sepharvites' child-burning rites colours the wider roster with the same kind of forbidden worship the Deuteronomic law condemns. Tartak is named only in this verse; everything the text says about the figure is exhausted in that single Avvite pairing with Nibhaz.