Cushi

The umbrella collects three figures with the same name (or, in one case, the same ethnic designation). UPDV preserves "Cushi" as a personal name for two ancestors in the prophetic books, and renders the third — Joab's runner who carried news of Absalom's death to David — as "the Cushite."

The Cushite who outran Ahimaaz

After Absalom is killed in the wood of Ephraim, Joab dispatches a foreign-born servant to break the news to the king: "Then Joab said to the Cushite, Go, tell the king what you have seen. And the Cushite bowed himself to Joab, and ran" (2Sa 18:21). Ahimaaz the son of Zadok pleads to follow and is reluctantly allowed: "But come what may, let me, I pray you, also run after the Cushite. And Joab said, Why will you run, my son, seeing that you will have no good news to deliver?" (2Sa 18:22). Taking the longer Plain road, Ahimaaz still arrives first: "Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the Plain, and outran the Cushite" (2Sa 18:23).

David waits between the two gates while the watchman tracks the runners (2Sa 18:24-27). Ahimaaz delivers a partial report — victory, but he claims not to know Absalom's fate (2Sa 18:28-29). The Cushite arrives next and speaks plainly: "And, look, the Cushite came; and the Cushite said, good news for my lord the king; for Yahweh has avenged you this day of all those who rose up against you" (2Sa 18:31). David's only question is for his son: "Is it well with the young man Absalom? And the Cushite answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up against you to do you hurt, be as that young man is" (2Sa 18:32). The Cushite alone tells the king what Ahimaaz would not.

The ancestor of Jehudi

In Jeremiah's narrative of Jehoiakim's burning of the scroll, Cushi appears as a great-grandfather in a courier's pedigree: "Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take in your hand the roll in which you have read in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came to them" (Jer 36:14). The name marks Jehudi's lineage; the man himself is otherwise unrecorded.

The father of Zephaniah

The prophet Zephaniah's superscription names his father and traces the line four generations back: "The word of Yahweh which came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah" (Zep 1:1). Cushi here is a Judahite name in a royal-line genealogy, distinct from the Davidic-era Cushite of 2 Samuel and from Jehudi's ancestor in Jeremiah.