Hebrew word · H3572
כּוּשָׁן
khushan
Cushan
A proper name that appears only here as a people's name. It is related to 'Cush' (normally Nubia, south of Egypt) and to the personal name Cushan-rishathaim, the oppressor king in Judges 3:8–10.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
§ Cushan = "their blackness"
a place in Arabia or Mesopotamia
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Habakkuk 3:7
- Range of meaning
A proper name that appears only here as a people's name. It is related to 'Cush' (normally Nubia, south of Egypt) and to the personal name Cushan-rishathaim, the oppressor king in Judges 3:8–10.
- Against the English
English versions keep 'Cushan'. The Septuagint ('Ethiopians') and the Vulgate ('Aethiopiae') equate it with African Cush, and older readers followed them.
- How it drifted
Readers who know 'Cush = Ethiopia' may picture Africa. The parallel with Midian and the southern setting of verse 3 (Teman, Paran) point to the Arabian/Sinai region instead.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Egyptian Execration Texts (curse texts, c. 19th–18th century BC) name a group called Kushu (Kwšw) that many place in the southern Transjordan/Negev area. Numbers 12:1 calls Moses' wife a 'Cushite'. Since his known wife Zipporah was Midianite, many scholars see evidence there for a 'Cush/Cushan' group linked with Midian. Some scholars connect Cushan-rishathaim to Edom or this southern region rather than to Mesopotamia.
Where it appears
Habakkuk · 1
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Habakkuk 3:7 כוּשָׁ֑ן Cushan
I saw the tents of Cushan in distress; the curtains of Midian were trembling.
Here: A tent-dwelling people or region named in parallel with Midian, so it was probably in the far south: north-west Arabia, southern Transjordan or the Sinai. The name appears only here as a people's name.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.