Cush (I)

I. CUSH, the eldest Son of Ham, and Gen. x. 8. Gen. x. 7, 8.Father of Nimrod. The eastern People¹ affirm Cush the Son of Canaan, and Grandson of Ham, to have had a Son whose name was Habaschi or Haboschi, the Father of the Abyssinians, or Egyptians, whom the Persians call Black Indians. The Hebrew Grammarians derive the word Habaschah, which signifies Ethiopia, from Hobouscha, which signifies a People raised from a mixture of different Nations, originally of different Countries, who live together united, and that this is the true derivation of the word Habasch, which comprehends the Abyssinians, Nubians, and the Fongi. The sacred Books know nothing of Cush the Son of Canaan, nor of Habasch the Son of Cush; but only of Cush the Son of Ham, whose Sons they tell us, were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, Sabtecha and Nimrod. Part of Arabia, and that particularly which we call the happy, was formerly comprized under the name of Ethiopia, because the Abyssinians, who conquered it, possessed it for a long time. Dhou-Iren King of Yemen drove them from thence with the assistance of the Persians. We have no other Person in Scripture of this name besides Cush, but there are several Countries that are called by it; whether the same Man may have dwelt in several places: Or that there was some other Cush, whom we know nothing of. The Vulgate, Septuagint, and other Interpreters both antient and modern, generally translate Cush, Ethiopia. But there are many passages, wherein certainly this translation cannot take place. It is necessary therefore to examine the several acceptations of the word Cush.

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