Cush

The name “Cush” comes from the Bible, and its territory is described in two places: 

First, in Genesis 2:13, “The name of the second river is the Gihon; it is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush.” Here, “Cush” refers to a region in Asia Minor’s Mesopotamia, but its specific location is unknown.

Second, it refers to a region in ancient southern Egypt (now northern Sudan). Sometimes the Bible also translates it as “Ethiopia,” though the geographical area is different from modern-day Ethiopia. Cush had over a hundred ethnic groups, so the Arabs considered them to be a mixed-race people and called them “Habashi” (mixed-race).

The name “Cush” originally meant “black.” Their ancestor was Ham, the son of Noah (Genesis 10:6; 1 Chronicles 1:8). The sons of Ham were Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.

Around 1500 BC, at the time of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, Cush was under Egyptian rule for about five centuries. Afterward, Cush broke free from Egyptian control. Around the late 8th century BC, Cush conquered Egypt and ruled it for less than a century, a period known as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (the Nubian or Ethiopian Dynasty).

Around 684 BC, Assyria destroyed Thebes in Upper Egypt and completely conquered Egypt, ending Cush’s rule over the Nile Valley. This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah from about half a century earlier (Isaiah 20:3-4): “Then the Lord said, ‘Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and omen against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, both young and old, to Egypt’s shame.'”

Although the Cushite regime was destroyed, Isaiah prophesied that before the coming of God’s kingdom, God would bring back the scattered Jews from various nations, specifically mentioning Cush (Isaiah 11:11): “In that day the Lord will extend his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.”

After Israel’s re-establishment in 1948, many Jews have returned to Israel from all over the world, including hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned Jews.