International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

CUSH (1)

kush (kush):

1. The Ancestor of Many Nations:

(1) The first of the sons of Ham, from whom sprang Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabtecah. He was also the father of Nimrod, who rounded Babel (Babylon) and the other great states of Shinar or Babylonia (Genesis 10:6-8). The meaning of the name is uncertain.

(2) The name of the country around which the Gihon flowed (Genesis 2:13), rendered "Ethiopia" in the King James Version, but in view of the distance of that country from the other rivers mentioned, this seems to be an unlikely identification.

2. A District of the Garden of Eden:

Fried. Delitzsch has suggested (Wo lag das Paradies? 74) that the watercourse in question is the canal Gu-hande or Arahtu, which, coming from the South, entered Babylon a little to the East of the Euphrates, and, flowing alongside the Festival-Street, entered the Euphrates to the North of Nebuchadrezzar's palace. Koldewey (Tempel von Babylon und Borsippa, 38) regards the Gu-hande as the section of the Euphrates itself at this point. There is no indication, however, that the district which it enclosed was ever called Kusu or Cush, and the suppression of the final syllable of Gu-hande would remain unexplained. Moreover, the identification of Cush with a possible Cas, for Kasdu, "Chaldea," seems likewise improbable, especially as that name could only have been applied, in early times, to the district bordering on the Persian Gulf (see CHALDEA).

3. Probably not in Asia Minor:

Another theory is, that the Cush of Genesis 2:13 is the Kusu of certain Assyrian letters, where it seems to designate a district in the neighborhood of Cappadocia. This identification apparently leads us back to an ancient tradition at one time current in the East, but later forgotten, which caused the Pyramus river to assume the name of Jihun (i.e. Gihon). This stream rises in the mountains Northeast of the Gulf of Alexandretta, and, taking a southwesterly course, flows into the Mediterranean near Karatash. Though nearer than the Ethiopian Cush, this is still too far West, and therefore unsatisfactory as an identification-all the streams or waterways of the Garden of Eden ought to flow through the same district.

CUSH (2)

kush (kush; Septuagint Chousei, Psalm 7 title): A Benjamite, perhaps he that "was without cause" the "adversary" of David (compare Psalm 7:4).

See CUSHI.