CUSH, OD, as the name of an individual, is mentioned among the sons of Ham, together with Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan (Gen. x. 6, and Chron. i. 8). Being the first-named, be may be presumed to have been the eldest son. The sons of Cush are called Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah ; the sons of Raamah, Sheba, and Dedan. Afterwards Nimrod is also mentioned as the son of Cush. It may, however, only be meant that he was his descendant. Cush was the pro genitor of the people known afterwards by his name. Like Mizraim and Canaan, he also gave his name to a country as well as to a people. With respect, however, to the situation of the particular country denominated Cush, various opinions have been held. Bochart (Pizaleg. iv. 2) maintained that Cush was exclusively Arabian. Michaelis and Rosenmiiller were in favour of an African as well as an Arabian Cush. The first to advance the suggestion that Cush was exclusively African was Schu]thess in his Paradies, p. t 1. He was fol lowed by Gesenius, and most moderns agree with him. Indeed we cannot but think that it is diffi cult to understand how Cush should ever have been supposed to be other than African ; if, indeed, not exclusively, at least in addition to one of which the locality might be fixed elsewhere. The A. V., wherever it translates the word, invariably renders it by ' Ethiopia,' and doubtless with reason ; and there is not a single passage in the Bible in which Cush cannot fairly be understood to mean Ethiopia. Ezek. xxix. to, even mentions Syene as the border of Cush according to the marginal version, which is to be preferred. Moreover, in the prophets Miz raim and Cush are frequently named together, which they probably would not have been had the countries themselves not been contiguous (Ps. lxviii. 31 ; Is. xi. I 1 ; xx. 4 ; xliii. 3 ; xlv. 14 ; Nahum iii. 9). The first mention of Cush in connection with Mizraim, Gen. x. 6, seems to shew that there is at least no antecedent improbability in a geo graphical as well as ethnological affinity having existed between the two nations. The Lubim and Sukkiim, doubtless African peoples, are found united with the Cushites (2 Chron. xii. 3), in the army of Shishak (cf. also 2 Chron. xvi. 8 ; Jer. xlvi. 9, and Dan. xi. 43), in all of which passages Cush can only be supposed with violence to mean an Asiatic people. In Is. xxxvii. 9, Tirhakah, who is known to have belonged to the 25th or Ethiopian dynasty of Egyptian kings, is called king of Cush. In Esther i. i and viii. 9, the domi nion of Ahasuerus is said to have extended from India even unto Cush ; and as this king, whoever he was, probably belonged to the 27th dynasty of Egyptian kings, it is likewise certain that Ethiopia would have been the southernmost province of his kingdom. In Isaiah, Cush, as above remarked, is frequently mentioned in connection with Egypt, and at ch. xviii. 1, the phrase ' rivers of Ethiopia' (see the same words, Zeph. iii. to) seems to point to the White and Blue Nile, which irrigate the country probably answering to the Scripture Cush. If such, then, are the reasons on which we ground the supposition that Cush was a country to the of Egypt corresponding to ` Ethiopia,' how is it that the opinion can be entertained that the region of Cush is to be sought either in the south of the Arabian peninsula, or even, as some suppose, in a district in the neighbourhood of Mesopotamia? In the first place, the mention of Cush as watered by the Gihon, one of the rivers of Eden (Gen. ii.
13), has been thought to prove the existence of an Asiatic Cush. It is a sufficient answer to this that, seeing it is utterly hopeless to understand the geo graphy of this passage, it cannot be held to furnish any argument as to the position of Cush, more particularly, if by Gihon is intended the river Nile, as some have thought. Again, in Num. xii. Moses is said to have married an Ethiopian (Cush ite) woman. From this it has been inferred that Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian, is the person meant, and that, as thus Midian and Cush appear to have been used indifferently, we may conclude that they were contiguous countries, and that, therefore, there was an Asiatic Cush. But there is no reason whatever for supposing the person here spoken of to have been Zipporah, for it is extremely improbable that Miriam and Aaron should have reproached Moses at this time with an alliance which must have been contracted at least forty years before. It is far more likely either that Zipporah was by this time dead, and that Moses had married again, or that he had taken this Cushite in addition to her. Again, in Job xxviii. 19, mention is made of the topaz of Ethiopia MOD MD, and we are reminded that Diodorus speaks of a topaz island in the Red Sea (iii. 39) ; as also Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 8 ; and Strabo, xvi. 4, 6. But an island in the Red Sea, even if this is the place referred to by Job, might with as much reason be considered as belonging to Ethiopia or Africa as to Asia and Arabia. And lastly, in 2 Chron. xxi. 16, it is said, in somewhat remarkable words, that ` the Lord stirred up the spirit of the Philistines and of the Arabians that were near the Ethiopians,' 1.1 3,t, which have been thought to furnish a valid argument for the existence of an Asiatic Cush. But here again, we suppose the words `that were near,' or ` by the side of,' to refer to the Arabians alone, and thus surely it must be admitted that they express as accurately the position of Arabia with regard to Ethiopia as they could, if there had been an Arabian or Asiatic Cush, have described the position of it with respect to that. Niebuhr found in Yemen a tribe calling themselves Beni Chusi, and the Targum of Jonathan at Gen. x. 6, explains Cush by Arabia, so does another para phrast (I Chron. i. 8), but it must also be borne in mind that the Targum of Jonathan at Is. xi. ti explains Cush by India. The fact appears to be that Cush was used in a somewhat vague way as A1014 by the classics (Horn. Od. i. 22 ; cf. also Herod. vii. 69, 7o) ; and that though Ethiopia was probably the country meant by Cush, yet the peo ple inhabiting it may have extended themselves by colonies and settlements in various other regions, in Arabia e.g., and elsewhere, and gained such hold as to cause the localities where they abounded to be recognised as Cushite, and so denominated. We have proof that the Himyaritic Arabs were called by the Syrians Cush2eans in the 5th century (Asseman, Bib. Orient. i. 36o ; iii. 568).
The Egyptian name for Ethiopia in the inscrip tions is Kesh ; cf. also the modern Geez. It may lastly be remarked that the inhabitants of the biblical Cush were black (Jer. xiii. 23), which would not have been the case had Cush been an Arabian or Mesopotamian country.
Besides j:12, we find a Cushite, 11+;;.,;1 a Cushite woman, and the plurals niran and 1:14?;')z.—S. L.