Cush
l. In the hieroglyphs Kash, Kaish, Kish, Keshi, Kesh, or Kc-flia, a nation to which frequent reference is made in the Itible. Its • "The tent-fltulT is seamed of nftrrow lenifths of the house- wives' nide worsted weftviiig ; the yam is tlieir own spinning, of the nitn((Ied wool of the sheep and camels' and gouts' hair tO|,'elher. Thus it is that the oloth il biackLih,' Doughty, A rahia Dejfrta. i. p. 225. f fKv»crcfa, Inr. af..
is more prolmhly a s>-nonym of rnitici^aftc, one wlin prepared and put together the lenprttm Hiipplied hv the weavcni. Sue llamsay and Nestle in Bxp04. 2'tntM, WiL (180^) 1(1», 1B3, 280. 536 CUSH CUSHAN-RISHATHABI founder is given in the ethnological tables of Gn (IC) as son of Ham, and brotlier of Mizraim (Egypt), Put, and Canaan. Though the form Kush is not found in the hieroglyphs, there is no doubt of the identity of the natiou ordinarily referred to in the Bible, and located by Ezk id'" S.
of Egypt, with the Kesh, whose home was in Ethiopia, but who were known to the Hebrews through the prominent part they played in Egyp. ail'airs. This country, ' embracing the territories S. of Egypt originally inhabited by negro tribes called Nabs, u ' (Brugsch, Gevgraphie der Nachbarldnder ^gyptens, p. 4), and extending S. from the first cataract, though repeatedly invaded by Egyp. kings of the early dynasties, was formally enrolled in Egypt by Tahutmes I.
of the 18th dynasty, and put under a governor called the prince of Kesh (Egyp. set en-si en Kesh, king's-son of Cush), who from the 18th dynasty regularly figures in the Egyp. records by the side of the king of Egypt. Somewhere about 1000 B.C., during the wars between the higb priests of Amon (descendants of Hrihor) and the Tanites, the Upper Nile was lost to Egypt, and it is probable that descendants of Hrihor, escaping to Napata, on Mt. Barkal (according to some authorities, the Heb.
"j:, which is more probably to be identified with Mem- phis), founded a dynasty. These kings took the same titles as the Egyp. monarchs ; at about B.C. 800, at the end of the reign of Sheshonk II., they occupied Thebes ; and about 775, under the king Pi'anchi, they had spread as far S. as Hermopolis, while all important towns had Eth. garrisons. An attempt made by Tefnaht of Sais (whose name survives in Gr.
authors under the form Tv^^ax^os) to unite the petty princes under whose rule Lower Egypt had now fallen, in resisting them, was defeated at Memphis, (the great stele of Pi'anchi, edited by Mariette, iI/on«m«n<iZ)»i'ers,andtr.by Brugsch, Gesch. /Egyp.
682-707, in which this event is described, is one of the most important of the hieroglyphic monuments), although for reasons not known Pi anchi afterwards made terms with Tefnaht, whose son Bokenranf , or Bocchoris, is represented by Manetho as the founder of the 24th dynasty. During the reign of this king (about B.C.
728), a successor of Pi'anchi (prob- ably after some intermediate reigns), Shabaka, son of Kashtu, called in the Bible kio So' (2 K 17*, which should rather be read Sava, representing the name without the definite article), himself on the mother's side a descendant of Osorkon III.
of the 23rd dynasty, invaded Lower Egypt, defeated Boc- choris, and put him to death ; and, unlike his predecessor Pi'anchi, succeeded in obtaining a per- manent hold on the country, whence he and his two successors are regarded as constituting a 25th, or Eth. dynasty. The conspiracy between this king and Hosea of Isr. against the Assyr.
led to the defeat of the former at Raphia in 720, and to the captivity of the ten tribes ; and the identification of Egypt with Ethiopia at this time is alluded to in Is 7'*, where the ' fly that is in the uttermost part of the river of Egj-jjt,' i.e. Ethiopia, is made co-ordinate with Assyria as a first-rate power ; and in Is 20'"- the names Cush and Mizraim are used as synonyms. (See e.specially Lenormant, ' M6moire sur I'epoque Eth.' Rev. Archiolugique, 1870).
Under Shabaka's son Shabataka, or Sebichos (perhaps the Sabteca of Gn 10'), it is probable that anarchy again broke out in the Delta, a state of things reflected in the prophecy of Is 19. The king Shabataka, who had acceded in 716, was followed in 704 by Taharka (the .ip.jin of the Bible, 2 K 19"), who is said to have murdered his predecessor and to have married Shabaka's widow, acknowledging her son as co-regent.
As in 2 K 19" he is ofljcially described as king of Cush only, it is probable that his authority was not at first recognized in Egypt. During his reign occurred the famous conspiracy which led to Sennacherib's invasion of Pal., terminating most probably in th« defeat of the Egyp. forces at Altaku, although, eis the Assyr. were unable to follow up their victory, peace was made between the two powers, giving Taharka time to consolidate his authority ; until in 671 a fresh quarrel with the Assyr.
led to the in- vasion of Egj'pt by Esarhaddon, who conquered the country as far S. as Thebes ; and a fresh attempt of Taharka to turn out the Assyr. at the accession of Assurbanipal in 668 led only to a fresh invasion and renewed disasters in the following year. Taharka's son and successor Tanuatama, or Urdamani, who acceded in 664, would seem to have made one more attempt to free the country from the Assyr., but without more success than his predecessois, and in the following year the Eth.
rule came finally to an end. Their own country was invaded by Cambyses in B.C. 525, whence in the lists of Dariua the Cushiya figure as a subject race. Though the Persians could not permanently occupy the country, they would seem to have destroyed Napata, the chief town after this time being Meroe or Barua, slightly N. of Shendi on the Upper Nile, which Herodotus regards as the chief city, although Napata was long regarded as the sacred city.
The ancients tell us about the elective nature of the Eth. monarchy, their statements being, in part, confirmed by the monuments of Napata ; and it would seem that the kings were chosen out of certain families by the god, i.e. by the priests, who also had the right to command the king to put an end to his life if they thought fit — a right which was finally abolished by king Erkamon, or Erga- menes, early In the 3rd cent. B.C.
This custom, which has been illustrated from the practice of tribes still existing in Africa, may be regarded as specifically Eth., as also the female rule, which at most periods of Eth. history seems to have had theoretical or practical recognition ; in Rom. times they were governed by queens, called always Cau- dace (cf.
Ac 8*'), apparently associated with their sons ; but even in tlieir earlier history the import- ant position given to the kings' mothers and sisters anticipates this practice. Otherwise, Eth. culture, art, and religion, as well as the official language, would seem to have been directly borrowed from Egypt ; and while the idea that Egyp. culture was Eth.
in origin must be distinctly rejected, the theory of Lepsius, that the Cush were the nation who circulated that culture through the ancient world, would seem to rest on no secure foundation. 2. The fact that Cush in Gn 10' is represented as the father of Nimrod, probably comes from the confusion of the Kesh with the Cusscei, or Kashshu, a tribe who had possession of Babylonia between the 16th and 13th cent. B.C.* 3.
For the names of the sons of Cush in Gn 10'', see Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabtaca. D. S. MARGOLIOtTTH. CUSH (E'13, LXX Xowe/)- — Mentioned only in the title of Ps 7. The older translators appear to have read V'^ (Aq. Symm. Theod. Jer.) 'As the name of a person, the word is of uncertain mean- ing' (Delitzsch). Cush is described as a Benjamite, and was probably a follower of Saul who opposed David, 'rhe seventh psalm sheds no light on name, person, or character. W. T. Davison.
CUSHAN-RISHATHAIM (D-nipr! 1«''3. 'S.ovcapca- 66.1)1., AV Chushan-rishathaim), king of Mesopo- • Hommel, however (Ezpofiton/ Timet [1897], vUl. 878) would rejfard the tribe mentioned here &a one existing in Central Arattla, to which he tinda further reference in 2 Ch 14^, where Zerah the Cushite is said to liave invaded Judah iu the days of Asa (cf. LXX hoth here and in 2 Ch 21i«, where he finds the Arab, tribe Mxfin7Teti, Mazin, mentioned).
The name Zerah (or Dirrih) is found as a title of early Ssbnan kings. It ma^ M doulited, however, if the LXX readiDKfl really preserve eithei the ori^al text or an ancient tra^iition respecting its meaning CUSm, CUSHITE CUTTINGS IN THE FLESH 537 tamia or Arain-naharaim, was the tirst of those oppressors iiilo whose hands Ciod delivered Israel for their apostasy in the days of the Judges (Jg S'"'").
For eight years they were in bondage to this king, till they were delivered by Caleb's younger brother Othniel. Of Cuslian-rishathaim nothing more is known directly, and his name has not yet been found on the monuments. The country over which he ruled, ' Aram of the Two Rivers,' was in all probability the territory lying between the Euphrates and the Chaboraa, the last of the tributaries of the Great River. (See Aram- naharaim in art. Aram, p. 13S'.)
Its two cities mentioned in Scripture are Ilaran (Gn 28'°) and PethoT {VfiS*, Nu 22'). It is known as Nahrina on the Egyptian monuments, and Is'ahrima in the Tel el-Ajuarna tablets, the native name of its people being Mitanni. Sayce (the soundness of whose ar^tunent, however, is denied by Moore and Dnver) tinds a remarkable correspondence between the notice of Cushan-rishathaim in Jg and the history of the reign of liamsea III.
' The eight years, he says, ' during which the king of Aram- naharaim oppressed Israel would exactly agree with the interval between the beginning of the Libyan attack npon Egypt and the campaign of the Pharaoh against Syria. We know from the Egyptian records that Mitanni of Artun- naharaim took part in the invasion of Egypt ; we also know from them that the king of Mitanni was not among those who actually marched into the Delta.
He participated in the southward move- ment of the peoples of the north, and nevertheless lingered on the way. What is more probable than that he a^^ain sought to secure that dominion in Canaan which had belonged to some of his predecessors ? ' See further Othniel. LmitATCiii.— Moore, Judga, pp. 84-89; Driver, Contemp. Bsw (1884), p. 420 S. ; Sayce, UCit, pp. 297-304. T. NicoL.