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Cush
Cush
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Children	Nimrod, Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Sabtechah
Parent	Ham (father);

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Cush or Kush (/kʊʃ, kʌʃ/ Hebrew: כּוּשׁ Kūš; Ge'ez: ኩሽ), according to the Hebrew Bible, was the oldest son of Ham and a grandson of Noah. He was the brother of Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. Cush was the father of Nimrod.^[1]^[2]

Cush is traditionally considered the ancestor of the "Land of Cush", an ancient territory believed to have been located near the Red Sea. Cush is identified in the Bible with the Kingdom of Kush or ancient Aethiopia.^[3] The Cushitic languages are named after Cush.^[4]

Identification

kꜣš^[5]
in hieroglyphs

Era: 1st Intermediate Period
(2181–2055 BC)

kš^[5]^[6]
in hieroglyphs

Era: Middle Kingdom
(2055–1650 BC)

Cush is a Hebrew name that is possibly derived from Kash, the Egyptian name of Upper Nubia and later of the Nubian kingdom at Napata, known as the Kingdom of Kush. Alternatively the biblical name may be a mistranslation of the Mesopotamian city of Kish.^[7]

The form Kush appears in Egyptian records as early as the reign of Mentuhotep II (21st century BC), in an inscription detailing his campaigns against the Nubian region.^[8] At the time of the compilation of the Hebrew Bible, and throughout classical antiquity, the Nubian kingdom was centered at Meroë in the modern-day nation of Sudan.^[7]

References in Bible

Cush's sons were Nimrod, Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtechah.^[2]

Traditional identifications

Josephus gives an account of the nation of Cush, son of Ham and grandson of Noah: "For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Cushites" (Antiquities of the Jews 1.6).

The Book of Numbers 12:1 calls a wife of Moses "a Cushite woman", whereas Moses's wife Zipporah is usually described as hailing from Midian. Ezekiel the Tragedian's Exagoge 60-65 (fragments reproduced in Eusebius) has Zipporah describe herself as a stranger in Midian, and proceeds to describe the inhabitants of her ancestral lands in North Africa:

"Stranger, this land is called Libya. It is inhabited by tribes of various peoples, Ethiopians, dark men. One man is the ruler of the land: he is both king and general. He rules the state, judges the people, and is priest. This man is my father and theirs."

During the 5th century AD, Arameann and Assyrian Christian writers sometimes described the Himyarites of South Arabia as Cushaeans and Ethiopians.^[3]

Gregory of Tours claimed that Cush was the same person as the Persian Zoroaster and that he was the inventor of magic and idolatry.^[9]

The Persian historian al-Tabari (c. 915) recounts a tradition that the wife of Cush was named Qarnabil, daughter of Batawil, son of Tiras, and that she bore him the "Abyssinians, Sindis and Indians".^[10]

Explorer James Bruce, who visited the Ethiopian Highlands c. 1770, wrote of "a tradition among the Abyssinians, which they say they have had since time immemorial", that in the days after the Deluge, Cush, the son of Ham, traveled with his family up the Nile until they reached the Atbara plain, then still uninhabited, from where they could see the Ethiopian table-land. There they ascended and built Axum, and sometime later returned to the lowland, building Meroë. He also states that European scholars of his own day had summarily rejected this account on grounds of their established theory, that Cush must have arrived in Africa via Arabia and the Bab-el-Mandeb, a strait located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, and Djibouti and Eritrea on the Horn of Africa.^[11] Further, the great obelisk of Axum was said to have been erected by Cush in order to mark his allotted territory, and his son Ityopp'is was said to have been buried there, according to the Book of Aksum, which Bruce asserts was revered throughout Abyssinia equally with the Kebra Nagast.

Scholars like Johann Michaelis and Rosenmuller have pointed out that the name Cush was applied to tracts of country on both sides of the Red Sea, in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) and Northeast Africa.

Professor Francis Brown suggested that the Cushites referred to both African and Asiatic peoples, with the latter being identified as the Kassites. Brown believes that the Cushites in the Book of Genesis, such as Nimrod, were Asiatics based on contextual information.^[12] The Asiatic theory has been supported by archaeologists such as Juris Zarins.^[13]

References

^ Williams, Frank (2008-11-27). The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: (Sects 1-46) Second Edition, Revised and Expanded. BRILL. p. 18. ISBN 978-90-474-4198-4.
^ ^a ^b "Genesis 10:8-12". Bible (New Living Translation ed.). Tyndale House. 2006. ISBN 978-1414309477.
^ ^a ^b The Kingdoms of Kush. National geographic society. 2018. Archived from the original on 2020-05-05. Retrieved 2022-02-19.
^ Lamberti, Marcello (1991). "Cushitic and Its Classifications". Anthropos. 86 (4/6): 552–561. ISSN 0257-9774.
^ ^a ^b Gauthier, Henri (1928). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 5. pp. 193–194.
^ Wallis Budge, E. A. (1920). An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list and geological list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, coptic and semitic alphabets, etc. Vol II. John Murray. p. 1048.
^ ^a ^b David M. Goldenberg (2003), The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, p. 18.
^ Richard A. Lobban Jr. (2003). Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia, p. 254.
^ A history of the Franks, Gregory of Tours, Pantianos Classics, 1916
^ Al-Tabari (circa 1915). Prophets and Patriarchs
^ James Bruce (1768-73), Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, p. 305
^ Brown, Francis (1884). "A Recent Theory of the Garden of Eden". The University of Chicago Press: Journals. 4 (1): 1–12.
^ Hamblin, Dora Jane (May 1987). "Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?" (PDF). Smithsonian Magazine. 18 (2). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.

[1] Williams, Frank (2008-11-27). The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: (Sects 1-46) Second Edition, Revised and Expanded. BRILL. p. 18. ISBN 978-90-474-4198-4.

[:0-2] "Genesis 10:8-12". Bible (New Living Translation ed.). Tyndale House. 2006. ISBN 978-1414309477.

[Scribner-3] The Kingdoms of Kush. National geographic society. 2018. Archived from the original on 2020-05-05. Retrieved 2022-02-19.

[4] Lamberti, Marcello (1991). "Cushitic and Its Classifications". Anthropos. 86 (4/6): 552–561. ISSN 0257-9774.

[Gauthier193-5] Gauthier, Henri (1928). Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 5. pp. 193–194.

[Budge1048-6] Wallis Budge, E. A. (1920). An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list and geological list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, coptic and semitic alphabets, etc. Vol II. John Murray. p. 1048.

[David_M._Goldenberg_p._18-7] David M. Goldenberg (2003), The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, p. 18.

[8] Richard A. Lobban Jr. (2003). Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia, p. 254.

[9] A history of the Franks, Gregory of Tours, Pantianos Classics, 1916

[10] Al-Tabari (circa 1915). Prophets and Patriarchs

[11] James Bruce (1768-73), Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, p. 305

[12] Brown, Francis (1884). "A Recent Theory of the Garden of Eden". The University of Chicago Press: Journals. 4 (1): 1–12.

[13] Hamblin, Dora Jane (May 1987). "Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?" (PDF). Smithsonian Magazine. 18 (2). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.

[1]

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{short description|Biblical character}}
+{{Infobox religious biography/Wikidata|fetchwikidata=ALL}}
-'''Cush''' or '''Kush''' ({{IPAc-en|k|ʊ|ʃ|,_|k|ʌ|ʃ}} {{lang-he|כּוּשׁ}} {{IPA-he|ˈkuʃ}}, ''Kush''; {{lang-gez|ኩሽ}}), according to the [[Hebrew Bible]], was the oldest son of [[Ham (son of Noah)|Ham]] and a grandson of [[Noah]]. He was the brother of [[Mizraim]], [[Phut]], and [[Canaan (son of Ham)|Canaan]]. Cush was the father of [[Nimrod]], a king called the "first heroic warrior on earth".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=Frank|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-O15DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18|title=The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: (Sects 1-46) Second Edition, Revised and Expanded|date=2008-11-27|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-474-4198-4|pages=18|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Bible|publisher=Tyndale House|year=2006|isbn=978-1414309477|edition=New Living Translation|chapter=Genesis 10:8-12}}</ref>
+'''Cush''' or '''Kush''' ({{IPAc-en|k|ʊ|ʃ|,_|k|ʌ|ʃ}} {{langx|he|כּוּשׁ}} ''Kūš''; {{langx|gez|ኩሽ}}), according to the [[Hebrew Bible]], was the oldest son of [[Ham (son of Noah)|Ham]] and a grandson of [[Noah]]. He was the brother of [[Mizraim]], [[Phut]], and [[Canaan (son of Ham)|Canaan]]. Cush was the father of [[Nimrod]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Williams|first=Frank|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-O15DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18|title=The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I: (Sects 1-46) Second Edition, Revised and Expanded|date=2008-11-27|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-474-4198-4|pages=18|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Bible|publisher=Tyndale House|year=2006|isbn=978-1414309477|edition=New Living Translation|chapter=Genesis 10:8-12}}</ref>
+Cush is traditionally considered the ancestor of the "Land of Cush", an ancient territory believed to have been located near the [[Red Sea]]. Cush is identified in the [[Bible]] with the [[Kingdom of Kush]] or ancient [[Aethiopia]].<ref name="Scribner">{{cite book|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/kingdoms-kush/#:~:text=Kush%20was%20a%20part%20of,Nile%20to%20the%20Red%20Sea.&text=The%20legendary%20Kingdom%20of%20Kush%2C%20with%20its%20series%20of%20capitals,more%20than%20a%20thousand%20years|title=The Kingdoms of Kush|publisher=National geographic society|year=2018|volume=|page=|access-date=2022-02-19|archive-date=2020-05-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200505060417/https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/kingdoms-kush/#:~:text=Kush%20was%20a%20part%20of,Nile%20to%20the%20Red%20Sea.&text=The%20legendary%20Kingdom%20of%20Kush%2C%20with%20its%20series%20of%20capitals,more%20than%20a%20thousand%20years|url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Cushitic languages]] are named after Cush.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lamberti |first=Marcello |date=1991 |title=Cushitic and Its Classifications |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40463677 |journal=Anthropos |volume=86 |issue=4/6 |pages=552–561 |issn=0257-9774}}</ref>
-Cush is traditionally considered the ancestor of the "land of Cush", an ancient territory believed to have been located near the [[Red Sea]]. Cush is identified in the Bible with the [[Kingdom of Kush]] or ancient [[Sudan]].
 ==Identification==
 {{hiero|kꜣš<ref name = Gauthier193>{{cite book |last1=Gauthier |first1=Henri |title=Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques Vol. 5 |date=1928 |pages=193–194 |url=https://archive.org/details/Gauthier1928/page/n99}}</ref>|<hiero>V31:G1-N37:N25</hiero>|era=1ip|align=right}}
 {{hiero|kš<ref name = Gauthier193/><ref name = Budge1048>{{cite book |last1=Wallis Budge |first1=E. A. |title=An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list and geological list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, coptic and semitic alphabets, etc. Vol II |date=1920 |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly02budguoft/page/1048 1048] |url=https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly02budguoft}}</ref>|<hiero>V31:N37-T14-N25</hiero>|era=mk|align=right}}
-Cush is a Hebrew name that is possibly derived from ''Kash'', the Egyptian name of [[Upper Nubia]] and later of the Nubian kingdom at [[Napata]], known as the [[Kingdom of Kush]].<ref name="David M. Goldenberg p. 18">David M. Goldenberg (2003), ''The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', p. 18.</ref>
+Cush is a Hebrew name that is possibly derived from ''Kash'', the Egyptian name of [[Upper Nubia]] and later of the Nubian kingdom at [[Napata]], known as the [[Kingdom of Kush]]. Alternatively the biblical name may be a mistranslation of the [[Mesopotamian]] city of [[Kish (Sumer)|Kish]].<ref name="David M. Goldenberg p. 18">David M. Goldenberg (2003), ''The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', p. 18.</ref>
 The form ''Kush'' appears in Egyptian records as early as the reign of [[Mentuhotep II]] (21st century BC), in an inscription detailing his campaigns against the Nubian region.<ref>Richard A. Lobban Jr. (2003). ''Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia'', p. 254.</ref> At the time of the compilation of the [[Hebrew Bible]], and throughout classical antiquity, the Nubian kingdom was centered at [[Meroë]] in the modern-day nation of [[Sudan]].<ref name="David M. Goldenberg p. 18" />
@@ Line 17: / Line 18: @@
 ==Traditional identifications==
-[[Josephus]] gives an account of the nation of Cush, son of Ham and grandson of [[Noah]]: "For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the [[Aethiopia|Ethiopians]], over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called [[Cushi|Cushites]]" (''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]'' 1.6).
+[[Josephus]] gives an account of the nation of Cush, son of Ham and grandson of [[Noah]]: "For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the [[Aethiopia|Ethiopians]], over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called [[Cushi]]tes" (''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]'' 1.6).
 The [[Book of Numbers]] 12:1 calls a wife of [[Moses]] "a Cushite woman", whereas Moses's wife [[Zipporah]] is usually described as hailing from [[Midian]]. [[Ezekiel the Tragedian]]'s ''Exagoge'' 60-65 (fragments reproduced in [[Eusebius]]) has [[Zipporah]] describe herself as a stranger in Midian, and proceeds to describe the inhabitants of her ancestral lands in North Africa:
 <blockquote>"Stranger, this land is called [[Ancient Libya|Libya]]. It is inhabited by tribes of various peoples, Ethiopians, dark men. One man is the ruler of the land: he is both king and general. He rules the state, judges the people, and is priest. This man is my father and theirs."</blockquote>
-During the 5th century AD, [[Syria]]n writers described the [[Himyarite Kingdom|Himyarites]] of [[South Arabia]] as ''Cushaeans'' and ''Ethiopians''.<ref name=Scribner/>
+During the 5th century AD, [[Aramean]]n and [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] Christian writers sometimes described the [[Himyarite Kingdom|Himyarites]] of [[South Arabia]] as ''Cushaeans'' and ''Ethiopians''.<ref name=Scribner/>
+[[Gregory of Tours]] claimed that Cush was the same person as the [[Persians|Persian]]  [[Zoroaster]] and that he was the inventor of magic and idolatry.<ref>A history of the Franks, Gregory of Tours, Pantianos Classics, 1916</ref>
-The [[Persia]]n historian [[al-Tabari]] (c. 915) recounts a tradition that the wife of Cush was named Qarnabil, daughter of Batawil, son of [[Tiras]], and that she bore him the "Abyssinians, Sindis and Indians".<ref>Al-Tabari (circa 1915). [https://books.google.com/books?id=BQNtV--kD5sC&pg=PA11 ''Prophets and Patriarchs'']</ref>
+The [[Persia]]n historian [[al-Tabari]] (c. 915) recounts a tradition that the wife of Cush was named Qarnabil, daughter of Batawil, son of [[Tiras]], and that she bore him the "Abyssinians, [[Sind]]is and [[Indian people|Indians]]".<ref>Al-Tabari (circa 1915). [https://books.google.com/books?id=BQNtV--kD5sC&pg=PA11 ''Prophets and Patriarchs'']</ref>
-Explorer [[James Bruce]], who visited the [[Ethiopian Highlands]] c. 1770, wrote of "a tradition among the Abyssinians, which they say they have had since time immemorial", that in the days after the Deluge, Cush, the son of Ham, traveled with his family up the Nile until they reached the [[Atbara]] plain, then still uninhabited, from where they could see the Ethiopian table-land. There they ascended and built [[Axum]], and sometime later returned to the lowland, building [[Meroë]]. He also states that European scholars of his own day had summarily rejected this account on grounds of their established theory, that Cush must have arrived in Africa via Arabia and the [[Bab-el-Mandeb]], a [[strait]] located between [[Yemen]] on the Arabian Peninsula, and [[Djibouti]] and [[Eritrea]] on the [[Horn of Africa]].<ref>James Bruce (1768-73), ''Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile'', p. 305</ref> Further, the great [[obelisk]] of Axum was said to have been erected by Cush in order to mark his allotted territory, and his son [[Ityopp'is]] was said to have been buried there, according to the ''[[Book of Aksum]]'', which Bruce asserts was revered throughout Abyssinia equally with the ''[[Kebra Nagast]]''.
+Explorer [[James Bruce]], who visited the [[Ethiopian Highlands]] c. 1770, wrote of "a tradition among the Abyssinians, which they say they have had since time immemorial", that in the days after the Deluge, Cush, the son of Ham, traveled with his family up the Nile until they reached the [[Atbara]] plain, then still uninhabited, from where they could see the Ethiopian table-land. There they ascended and built [[Axum]], and sometime later returned to the lowland, building [[Meroë]]. He also states that European scholars of his own day had summarily rejected this account on grounds of their established theory, that Cush must have arrived in Africa via [[Arabia]] and the [[Bab-el-Mandeb]], a [[strait]] located between [[Yemen]] on the Arabian Peninsula, and [[Djibouti]] and [[Eritrea]] on the [[Horn of Africa]].<ref>James Bruce (1768-73), ''Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile'', p. 305</ref> Further, the great [[obelisk]] of Axum was said to have been erected by Cush in order to mark his allotted territory, and his son [[Ethiopis|Ityopp'is]] was said to have been buried there, according to the ''[[Book of Aksum]]'', which Bruce asserts was revered throughout Abyssinia equally with the ''[[Kebra Nagast]]''.
 Scholars like [[Johann David Michaelis|Johann Michaelis]] and Rosenmuller have pointed out that the name ''Cush'' was applied to tracts of country on both sides of the [[Red Sea]], in the [[Arabian Peninsula]] (Yemen) and Northeast Africa.
+Professor Francis Brown suggested that the Cushites referred to both African and Asiatic peoples, with the latter being identified as the [[Kassites]]. Brown believes that the Cushites in the Book of Genesis, such as [[Nimrod]], were Asiatics based on contextual information.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brown |first=Francis |date=1884 |title=A Recent Theory of the Garden of Eden |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/469486 |journal=The University of Chicago Press: Journals |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=1–12}}</ref> The Asiatic theory has been supported by archaeologists such as [[Juris Zarins]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hamblin |first=Dora Jane |date=May 1987 |title=Has the Garden of Eden been located at last? |url=http://www.theeffect.org/resources/articles/pdfsetc/Eden.pdf |url-status=dead |format=PDF |journal=Smithsonian Magazine |volume=18 |issue=2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140109135715/http://www.theeffect.org/resources/articles/pdfsetc/Eden.pdf |archive-date=9 January 2014 |access-date=8 January 2014}}</ref>
 ==References==
@@ Line 35: / Line 40: @@
 {{Sons of Noah}}
 {{Authority control}}
 [[Category:Hebrew Bible nations|Cush]]
 [[Category:Kingdom of Kush]]
@@ Line 42: / Line 48: @@
 [[Category:Book of Genesis people]]
 [[Category:Books of Chronicles people]]
+[[Category:Zipporah]]

v t e Descendants of Noah in Genesis 10
Shem and Semitic	Elam Ashur Arpachshad Lud Aram
Ham and Hamitic	Cush Mizraim Phut Canaan
Japheth and Japhetic	Gomer Magog Madai Javan Tubal Meshech Tiras