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Whither the land of Cush?


R. Mansfield

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For today (March 26) Southern Baptist Sunday School literature focused on Isa 17-18. In ch. 18, there were references to the land of Cush (Ethiopia in some translations). I usually put together a handout for the class that I teach, and I had hoped to include a map that showed where the land of Cush was. I had even greater hopes of finding a map that demonstrated that Cush was actually greater in size than merely modern-day Ethiopia.

 

So I fired up the Accordance Bible Atlas, and I was disappointed to see no entry for the land of Cush. I tried searching for Ethiopia, but no luck there either. I looked in other modules that I have such as the Anchor Bible Dictionary and the IVP New Bible Atlas, but no luck. I even looked in the Photoguide thinking maybe I could find photographs from the region. But nothing.

 

From there, I fired up VirtualPC where I keep a few Windows Bible programs from my pre-Mac days (I switched in 1998). The version of Logos Bible Atlas had nothing, and neither did the map module in Wordsearch.

 

Even a Google image search yielded nothing (except for some really weird stuff).

 

All of these programs are in equal standing it seems. There are also no references to Cush in the maps in the back of my Bible! I've decided this morning just to tell my class to think "south of Egypt, going down the Nile."

 

Here's my question... I admit that I don't have the newest version of the Accordance Bible Atlas. Just out of curiosity, is Cush included in the new Atlas? Admittedly, Cush would be the very southwestern edge of the biblical world, but I would think that it's mentioned enough in the Bible to warrant inclusion in a biblical atlas.

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Strange. Looks like Cush is missing from the new Atlas as well.

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South of Egypt, you'd be going up the Nile.

 

 

HA! Right you are--forgot about that!

 

Of course as I showed it to the class using a map on the bulletin board, my finger traced the Nile downward, so I was right in some sense :)

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The original Accordance Atlas did not extend far enough south to include Cush. The new one just barely shows the very northern edge of Cush, and you're probably right that we should have included it.

 

With respect to where it is, I found the following passage in ISBE:

 

"The well-known country of Cush or Ethiopia, from Syene (Ezk 29:10) southward."

 

Syene, known in ancient times as Aswan, is now visible on the new Atlas. Until we can add Cush to a future update of the Atlas, you could always create a user layer and place a text item there that reads Cush.

 

Hope this helps.

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Thanks, David. I -DO- plan on upgrading. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.

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