Bryan Windle | Associates for Biblical Research
When we speak of the “Lands of the Bible” we really need to do so in the plural. While many people think only of the modern-day country of Israel as the Land of the Bible, much biblical history occurred in the surrounding countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Sudan.
Thinking about biblical places on modern maps helps me to contextualize what I read in the pages of Scripture. It is a reminder that the stories of people and events in the Bible are actual historical accounts, rooted in real places, many of which have been excavated archaeologically.
Today we’re going to look at the ancient Kingdom of Cush/Kush, which is mentioned frequently in the Bible.
The boundaries of ancient kingdoms do not often follow our modern-day country boarders. Cush extended from southern Egypt into much of Sudan on modern maps. This nation was named after Cush, one of Ham’s sons, one of Noah’s grandsons (Gn 10:6). His descendants moved into the region of Nubia, and became the dark-skinned people known to this day as Nubians.
So who were some famous Cushite people in the Bible?
1) Moses’ wife – Many know that Moses was married to Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, the Priest of Midian. The Bible seems to indicate that Moses also married another woman – a Cushite. In Num. 12:1 we read, “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.” It’s most likely that Moses had taken another wife – a dark-skinned woman from the modern-day country of Sudan…
