Ethiopia versus Arabia as the land of the Cushite. But in all Arabia there is not a single river
To look for the land of Cush in far off Asia is most objectionable; if thus, how came this Cushite so far from home? How came she in the way of the great leader? And have not critics long since monopolized all the prominent rivers there found to make out the Pison, the Hiddekel, the Euphrates? The contest plainly lies between two. Let us settle it in haste. Cush is encompassed by the Gihon. Arabia is not encompassed by the Gihon, therefore Arabia is not Cush.[1]
That the Nile is the Gihon of Moses appears also from the name itself. Gihon in the Hebrew signifies[2] "A stream, river, so called as breaking forth from fountains." It is from a verb which signifies to break or burst forth.
Does not Moses plainly allude to the annual bursting forth or inundations of the Nile, which
- ↑ Gesenius says, "Bochart with less caution than usual places the Cushites in a part of Arabia Felix; and with no better reason Michaelis makes them inhabitants, partly of Arabia, and partly of Ethiopia. But as Schulthers has justly remarked, there is no part of the Old Testament which makes it necessary to suppose that the Cushim were not in Africa. Indeed all the nations enumerated in Gen. x. 7, as sprung from Cush are to be sought in Africa.
- ↑ The word is גּיחונ derived from the root נִ׳חַ to break or burst forth.
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