🔼The name Acco: Summary
- Meaning
- Unknown but perhaps Serpent, or Sun Struck
- Etymology
- From the noun עכנא ('achana), serpent or the verb עכך ('akak), to be hot or sun struck.
🔼The name Acco in the Bible
The name Acco occurs only once in the Bible, namely in Judges 1:31, among a list of cities that hadn't been cleared of indigenous peoples. The tribe of Asher was reported as having failed to drive out the inhabitants of Acco.
Of course, since the entire line of Seth deals with the history of the knowledge of natural law, Asher's failure to drive out the people of Acco had to do with debating folly or erroneous reality models rather than with genocide.
The city Acco was named Ptolemais after Alexander's conquest and is as such mentioned in Acts 21:7.
🔼Etymology and meaning of the name Acco
It's not clear where the name Acco derives from or even from which language it stems. It might be Egyptian, since Egyptian records speak of a city named Aak or Akka in the north of Israel. To people who spoke Chaldean the name Acco may have seemed similar to the noun עכנא ('achana), meaning serpent. To Greeks it may have sounded similar to the name Achaia, from the noun αχος (achos), meaning pain or grief.
Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) believes that a certain Arabic verb must have existed in Hebrew as עכך ('akak), meaning to be hot or struck by the sun and translates this name as Sand Made Warm By The Sun. BDB Theological Dictionary does not offer an etymology or meaning.