Cush

Cush is in Scripture both a name and a land. The first Cush is a son of Ham, eldest brother of Mizraim, Put, and Canaan, and the father of Nimrod. From him the term broadens into a place — the territory south of Egypt, beyond the rivers of the Nile — and into the people who live there, whom the prophets call Cushites or Ethiopians. A second Cush, unrelated by family, surfaces only in the title of Psalm 7, a Benjamite whose words drove David to song. Around these threads are gathered the warrior nations of Africa, Moses' Cushite wife, the eunuch Ebed-melech, and the long sequence of prophetic oracles that promise both desolation and conversion to the land beyond the rivers.

Son of Ham

Cush stands first in the table of nations as eldest son of Ham. After the flood, Noah's three sons go forth from the ark together — "the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan" (Gen 9:18). Ham's own line then opens with Cush: "And the sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan" (Gen 10:6). Cush's sons in turn — "Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabteca" (Gen 10:7) — populate the southern reaches of the post-flood world. Of Cush himself the writer adds the singular note that produces the first empire-builder: "And Cush begot Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth" (Gen 10:8). The Chronicler repeats the genealogy without alteration (1Ch 1:8-10).

The Land of Cush

The name attaches to a country before it attaches to a people. Already in Eden the second of the four rivers is bounded by it: "And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that circles the whole land of Cush" (Gen 2:13). After the dispersion the land lies south of Egypt, identified with the African region the later writers call Ethiopia. Ezekiel marks its border explicitly — Egypt will be made waste "from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia" (Eze 29:10). Isaiah locates it past the headwaters of the Nile, "the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia" (Isa 18:1). At its furthest reach Esther names it as the eastern bound of the Persian world — Ahasuerus "reigned from India even to Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven and twenty provinces" (Est 1:1).

The inhabitants are dark-skinned, a fact Jeremiah turns into a parable of unchangeable habit: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you⁺ also do good, who are accustomed to do evil" (Jer 13:23). The land yields gold and gems — Job's poem on wisdom rules out even its finest stones as a price for it: "The topaz of Ethiopia will not equal it, Neither will it be valued with pure gold" (Job 28:19) — and Isaiah names "the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature" among the wealth of the south (Isa 45:14).

Cush the Benjamite

A second Cush, otherwise unknown, has left a single trace. Psalm 7 carries his name in the heading: "Shiggaion of David, which he sang to Yahweh, concerning the words of Cush a Benjamite" (Ps 7:1). What Cush said is not preserved; what David sang in answer is the whole of the psalm — an appeal to Yahweh as judge against slander.

Cushite Warriors

Cushites appear in Scripture as soldiers in the armies of others as well as their own. They march with Shishak of Egypt against Rehoboam — "the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the Ethiopians" (2Ch 12:3) — and Jeremiah's oracle against Egypt summons them to battle: "Cush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow" (Jer 46:9). Ezekiel finds them again in Gog's coalition, "Persia, Cush, and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet" (Eze 38:5).

The largest of these forces is Zerah's. He marches against Asa with "an army of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots" and sets the line at Mareshah (2Ch 14:9). Asa's prayer is a model of weakness pleading covenant: "Yahweh, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, O Yahweh our God; for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude" (2Ch 14:11). The result is decisive — "So Yahweh struck the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled" (2Ch 14:12), and the rout runs to Gerar, "and there fell of the Ethiopians so many that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before Yahweh, and before his host" (2Ch 14:13). Hanani the seer later holds this victory up to Asa as the standard he has fallen from: "Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with chariots and horsemen exceedingly many? Yet, because you relied on Yahweh, he delivered them into your hand" (2Ch 16:8).

A century and a half later it is a Cushite king who marches north against Assyria. Sennacherib breaks off his siege of Libnah on hearing "of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Look, he has come out to fight against you" (2Ki 19:9), and the angel of Yahweh strikes the Assyrian camp the same night.

Moses and the Cushite Woman

The only domestic Cushite reference in the Pentateuch is brief and unexplained: "And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married; for he had married a Cushite woman" (Num 12:1). The narrator places it next to a verse that is its own commentary on Moses' silence under the attack — "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all among man who were on the face of the earth" (Num 12:3). The marriage is the occasion for Miriam's leprosy, but the woman herself is never named again.

Ebed-melech

The most extended Cushite figure in the OT is a single eunuch in the court of Zedekiah. Ebed-melech, "the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king's house" (Jer 38:7), hears that Jeremiah has been thrown into the cistern to die and goes straight to the king. He pulls a permission, gathers thirty men, and improvises the rescue with rags from the treasury: "Put now these rags and worn-out garments under your armholes under the cords" (Jer 38:12), and the prophet is drawn up unhurt. When Jerusalem falls, Yahweh sends Jeremiah a personal word for him: "I will deliver you in that day, says Yahweh; and you will not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid… because you have put your trust in [my Speech], says Yahweh" (Jer 39:17-18). A foreigner, a courtier without a son, is singled out by name and saved on the same ground that saves Israel — trust.

Desolation

The prophets address Cush in two registers, and the first is judgment. Isaiah's sign-act over Egypt and Ethiopia is one of the harshest in the prophets: he walks "naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia" (Isa 20:3), and the meaning is laid out plainly — "so will the king of Assyria lead away the captives of Egypt, and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt" (Isa 20:4). Those who had looked to Cush for help are left in the open: "they will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory" (Isa 20:5).

Ezekiel doubles the sentence. Egypt's fall is a fall for Cush: "And a sword will come upon Egypt, and anguish will be in Ethiopia, when the slain will fall in Egypt" (Eze 30:4); "Ethiopia, and Put, and Lud, and all the mingled people, and Cub, and the sons of the land that is in league, will fall with them by the sword" (Eze 30:5); the day of the Lord will "make the careless Ethiopians afraid" (Eze 30:9). Habakkuk sees the older judgment shaking even the desert tribes — "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; The curtains of the land of Midian trembled" (Hab 3:7) — and Zephaniah names them among the nations under the sword: "You⁺ Ethiopians also, they are slain by my sword" (Zep 2:12). Isaiah's oracle in chapter 18, with its image of the land "beyond the rivers of Ethiopia" (Isa 18:1) and its tall, smooth-skinned, awe-inspiring nation (Isa 18:2), ends in pruning-hooks and birds of prey on the mountains (Isa 18:5-6). And in Daniel's last vision the king of the north's plunder reaches the same far country — "the Libyans and the Ethiopians will be at his steps" (Dan 11:43).

Conversion

The second register is opposite. Yahweh values these nations enough to spend them: "I have given Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your stead" (Isa 43:3). The merchandise of Cush comes over not as plunder but as confession — "they will fall down to you, they will make supplication to you, [saying,] Surely God is in you; and there is no other, no [other] God" (Isa 45:14). The remnant of Israel is gathered "from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath" (Isa 11:11), with Cush listed among the lands that will give back the people of Yahweh.

The clearest words are in the Psalter. "Bronze will come out of Egypt; Ethiopia will bring her hands [with tribute] in a hurry to God" (Ps 68:31). And Psalm 87, naming Yahweh's roll of citizens, writes Cush into it without commentary: "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon as among those who know me: Look, Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia: This [man] was born there" (Ps 87:4). The land that began as Ham's eldest line and stood under Yahweh's sword ends, in the prophets and the Psalms, on the register of those who know him.