Kushits

“Ah, land of rustling wings, beyond the rivers of Kush.”
(Isaiah 18:1)
Sudan is a biblical land. It is not at the center, like the Holy Land-or
even a major player like Egypt, Syria and Babylon. It is not part of the
central geography: the fertile crescent or the Mediterranean world. Yet it is
not outside like Japan or the Americas. Kush is found in our Bibles 48
times. It begins early: Kush is one of the sons ofHam.62
Kush is a clear geographical place, its northern boundary very distinct.
Ezekiel talks of the whole of Egypt “from Migdol (in the north) to Syene
(i.e. Aswan), as far as the border of Kush.”63 For at Aswan, the fertile Nile
valley, which south of the Delta is 16 miles wide, narrows drastically, as
the rocky hills crowd to the edge of the river, forming the Nile’s first
cataract. It is the heart of the Sahara desert, with the world’s longest river
winding through it. Kush is all the land south of the first cataract-Aswan.
Kush is also racial. At Aswan, the Black or Brown, the Negroid people
began. Kush meant the black race. The Nile was the most accessible road
to reach that race. Beginning with Egypt’s first dynasty, Egypt sought gold
and slaves there. Kushites were noted as warriors. And finally, Egypt’s
25th dynasty was Kushite: Napata in Nubia conquered and ruled Egypt,
and appeared in the prophecies of Isaiah.64 For that reason, the Greek
translation of the Old Testament used “Ethiopia” for “Kush”, and

“Ethiopian” for “Kushite”. Ethiopian in Greek meant literally a black
person. Almost every modem reader assumes it is the ancient version of the
modem nation of Ethiopia. In the Bible an Ethiopian is a black person-or
from Nubia.
The arenas of the Bible were: the holy land; the fertile crescent; and
the Mediterranean world. Kush belongs to the outside arenas. The Old
Testament projected a break-out from the arenas of Israel and the ancient
world. The Ideal King envisioned by Psalm 72 “will rule … to the ends of
the earth.” “Distant shores” as well as “Sheba and Seba” will be the King’s
domain. Jesus took this up. He told his disciples that they were his
witnesses “in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth.” The ends of the earth were crucial: they proved the truth of the
Good News itself, that the Great King had truly come. The Kingdom was
for everyone, anyone who simply believes. So Acts 10 tells how Peter was
led to preach to a Roman centurion, and that story directs the church
throughout the remainder of the book of Acts. 65 Yet, as a matter of fact, the
first Gentile baptized appeared before Acts 10, in Acts 8:26-40, the story of
Philip unfolding the Good News to a black man-and when he believed,
Philip baptized him. 66 He was the first believer from outside the Bible
world-and its arenas. He was an official for a queen-mother, from Meroe,
along the Nile in northern Sudan. Here Sudan moved out of the edges into
the center of the biblical story: the Gospel to “the ends of the earth”, Act
One. The story of Cornelius the centurion was really Act Two of the same
biblical drama. And then it continued-even until now.
I. “KUSH WILL SUBMIT HERSELF TO GOD”
Many people naturally assume that the conversion and baptism of the
Treasurer of Candace (Acts 8:26 ff) was the beginning of the history of the
Nubian Church. History rarely goes in such neat straight lines. The
Treasurer was an official of the Meroitic Empire. Its center was at Meroe,
south of where the Atbara River joins the Nile. It is between the fifth and
sixth cataracts, just north of Khartoum. This empire lasted a thousand
years, but it dissolved by 300AD, and disappeared. We do not yet know
how to decipher its language. There are no Christian remains from that
period.

NKOTSI CBSIR ®