Africa in the Bible, Part 2

Here are the Scripture references from Monday’s post about nations on the continent we call Africa (ex: Ethiopia, Egypt, Cush, Cyrene, Put, etc.).

1. In the opening chapters of the Bible, several African nations are mentioned by name (Genesis 10:5-7, 13-14) and promised to be blessed by God (Genesis 12:3, using same phrase as 10:5, OT equivalent of “all nations” in Great Commission).

 In regards to the names in the table of nations in Genesis 10:6, one scholar writes: ‘Cush can be used in a primary sense to define the kingdom(s) lying south of Egypt and in a secondary sense as an organizing term for the many nations to which it gave birth. The kingdom(s) of Cush would have fallen within the modern nations of Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Ethiopia … Put is an alternate spelling for the widely known Punt that was located immediately south of Cush and incorporated areas of modern Somalia. Similar to Cush and Misrayim [Hebrew for Egypt] Put probably referred to a kingdom as well as a broader geographical territory that may have covered … sub-Saharan Africa … Put may very well have included the many tribes that currently inhabit central, western, and maybe even southern Africa.’ – Keith Burton, The Blessing of Africa, p. 23-28.

2. Abraham’s firstborn son is half-African (Genesis 16:1, 3-4) and is blessed by God and becomes a great nation (21:13, 18, 20) and marries a wife from Africa (21:21)

3. An African woman in Genesis becomes one of the few people in Scripture who were blessed with a personal appearance from Yahweh (twice, Genesis 16 and 21). She also receives divine promises in those chapters and she is also one of a few who gives a name for Yahweh (El-Roi – the “God who sees”; Genesis 16:13-14)

4. Abram’s grandson Jacob, renamed Israel, moves to Africa at God’s command (Genesis 46:1-4), and pronounces God’s blessing on an African King (47:7, 10), and adopts 2 African-born sons (41:50; from a woman of the African land of On; Genesis 48:5-6;) and makes them part of Israel’s 12 tribes (as seen in later lists of Israel’s tribes and territories listing Ephraim and Manasseh even into the NT), and one of these half-African sons becomes father of the most prominent tribe of Israel, and his name becomes even a substitute name for the nation of Israel.

The MacArthur Study Bible explains the Hebrew phraseology in Gen 48:5-6 means Jacob “formally proclaimed adoption of Joseph’s sons on a par with Joseph’s brothers in their inheritance.” On v. 19-20 it says Jacob’s “blessing took on prophetic significance … since Ephraim would be the most influential of the two to the extent that Ephraim would become a substitute name for Israel … Ephraim did indeed become the dominant tribe of the 10 northern tribes, eventually being used as the national designate for the 10 tribes in the prophets (Is. 7:2,5,9,17; Hos. 9:3–16).”

5. Most of Israel’s first 500 years are spent in an African country (430 years in Egypt) where they had interactions with many other African peoples, some of whom came to faith in Yahweh and worshipped in the first Passover with Israel and also left with Israel in the Exodus (Exodus 12)

The “mixed multitude” of v. 37-38 probably was not only God-fearing Egyptians and other Africans with Semitic peoples, but also other strangers / sojourners / aliens [non-Jews, v. 19], who submitted to Israel’s Law and God by circumcision [v. 48-49]. OT law repeatedly makes provision for God-fearing Africans from Egypt and other foreigners / strangers / sojourners to worship equally with Israel in every way if they submitted to God’s law, including circumcision for males.

6. Israel’s great leader is adopted by an African and raised as an African (Exodus 2, Acts 7:20-22)

7. Arguably the greatest Israelite leader in the OT marries a black African who had come to faith in the God of Abraham, and God Himself defends and commends and blesses that marriage (Numbers 12:1; the text twice emphasizes Moses married a Cushite, an ancient kingdom in the country known as Sudan today. Cushites were well-known for their black skin, as alluded to in Jeremiah 13:23, and clearly portrayed in ancient artwork).

There is also extrabiblical Jewish writing confirming Moses’ marriage to a black Cushite woman. In v. 1 Miriam and Aaron object to this marriage but God in the text opposes them for opposing Moses and his “mixed” marriage, and God affirms the faithfulness of Moses in all his household and makes clear he has done nothing wrong (v. 4-7). In v. 9-10, some scholars have noted how Miriam spoke against her Jewish brother’s marriage to a black woman, and God makes Miriam white as snow in judgment. Another scholar says Israel’s leader marrying “a Black Cushite should also probably be viewed as a developing fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 (‘all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’). The promise to Abraham in Genesis drives much of the story in the rest of the Torah and the inclusion of one of the peoples from Genesis 10 (v. 6, Cush) into the ‘sons of Israel’ is a move toward fulfillment of that promise.’

8. One of Israel’s priests, whose name can mean “the Negro” or “the Nubian” is celebrated alongside Moses as one of Israel’s 2 great intercessors during the wilderness wandering. This man is the only other person in the OT besides Abraham who it speaks of God’s righteousness reckoned to, using the same phrase of Abraham’s covenant grace. The book of Numbers says this priest received an everlasting covenant from Yahweh.

At least 9 scholars have documented how the name Phinehas (Numbers 25) in this era and area ‘connotes either a person with unusually dark skin or a true African’ and in Egypt where he was likely born it clearly meant ‘the Negro’ or ‘the Nubian’ or ‘the Cushite.’ Daniel Hays documents and develops these points further in his book From Every Tribe and Tongue: A Biblical Theology of Race, p. 81-86: ‘Yahweh bestows the priesthood on Phinehas and all his descendants … Phinehas’ zealous defence of Yahweh becomes a model for subsequent generations … as Psalm 106 reflects back over Israel’s stormy history, it places Phinehas (106:30-31) along-side Moses (23, 32-33) as the two great intercessors of the wilderness time. [Psalm 106 says] “Phinehas stood up and intervened … This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations …” The phrase referring to the crediting (hasab) something to someone as righteousness (se’daqa) only occurs in one other place. In Genesis 15:6, Abraham believes God and God credits to him as righteousness … In Galatians 3, Paul uses this phrase (from Genesis 15:6) to prove that Gentiles are justified by faith and thus to be accepted into the church as equal to Jews. It is therefore, rather interesting to note that this phrase is used of Phinehas … [who] might very well have had a Cushite mother and therefore might have looked like a Cushite at birth, thus receiving the name ‘the Negro’ [which in the land they grew up in meant a black person] … Imagine the different route American Christianity might have travelled if the translators of the King James Bible had known Egyptian and had thus translated ‘Phinehas’ as ‘the Negro’. The early Americans would have read that God made an eternal covenant with ‘the Negro’, that all legitimate Israelite priests are descended from ‘the Negro’, and that God credited righteousness to ‘the Negro’ … it would have been extremely difficult to defend slavery or to maintain any type of superior-inferiority racial views.

While the meaning of Phinehas’ name is absolutely clear, the significance of this meaning is admittedly not quite as certain. However … it is extremely probable that Phinehas was at least half Black. When combined with the ‘mixed multitude’ of Exodus 12:38 and the Cushite wife of Moses, Phinehas reveals to us that there was a significant presence of Cushites among the early Israelites … at its beginning, the highest level of Israelite priesthood apparently had Black ethnic elements with it … As God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 (blessing to all peoples) unfolds, numerous different ethnicities are melded into the people of God in fulfilment of this promise.’

9. One of Israel’s greatest kings in history marries a woman who describes her skin to the Jews as “black/dark,” in a marriage passage celebrated for all time by the inspiration of God (In Song of Songs 1:5, the bride says “I am black/dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem …”)

10. Black Africans had close, friendly relations with Hezekiah, king of Judah, and fought to defend Judah against Assyria. These Africans also sent out a large army to relieve a siege against Jews in Jerusalem, that both 2 Kings and Isaiah records (this point is detailed further in the excellent scholarly work by Daniel Hays for those who like to study it further)

11. King David has one of his black soldiers tell him the news of the death of Saul and Jonathan in battle (2 Samuel 18; scholars believe his name or nickname “Cushi” was a reference to his ethnic identity as Cushite and/or his appearance), and a number of the men in King David’s army were from other nations but had come to follow Yahweh (ex: Uriah the Hittite, other Gittites, etc.)

12. Another Cushite (some translations have Ethiopian) man helps the Jewish prophet Jeremiah out of a well (Jeremiah 38:7-13), an African with true saving faith in Yahweh when few in Israel had true saving faith (39:16-18)

13. Nations of Africa by name are mentioned and prophesied to become recipients of salvation, which began in OT times and is promised in even greater measure before the end of time

On Psalm 68:31-32, the New Bible Dictionary comments: “The picture of Ethiopia, symbol of the great African unknown beyond the Egyptian river, stretching out hands to God, was like a trumpet call in the missionary revival of the 18th and 19th centuries.” Psalm 87:4-5 describes people from Egypt (Hebrew alternate name Rahab) and Ethiopia (Hebrew Cush) and other nations that God views as if they are born in Zion itself, the place of salvation. Psalm 72:8-9 speaks of the people from the river to the ends of the earth, perhaps referring to Africa south of the Nile to the end of the continent, as representatives of all the ends of the earth who would come to worship the true God from all nations (v. 10-11).

Isaiah 45:14 describes at least 2 African countries that will bow and acknowledge that Israel’s God is the only God. Isaiah 66:18-20 also speaks of other African nations who will see the glory of God and worship Him, from Put (possibly Somalia and/or sub-Saharan, though other scholars place farther north and east) and Lud (probably northern central Africa). Isaiah 18 addresses the people beyond the rivers of Cush, people known for their skin and stature. The chapter prophesies that true worshippers of Yahweh would come from that land (v. 7). Zephaniah 3:10 echoes this prophecy of worshippers from southern Africa beyond the rivers of Cush. This past Lord’s Day I got to worship with some of these people the OT prophesied about (south of Cush/Sudan is Congo!) and hear them sing again and again of Yahweh (the Hebrew word for Lord in that chapter and also their word for Lord in their dialect still).

14. An African nation is prophesied to become “My people” by God (Isaiah 19:18-25, an astonishing prophecy treating Israel’s former arch-enemy on par with Israel using language elsewhere only used of Israel)

15. The African nation of Egypt is mentioned about as many times as the Jewish nation of Judah in the Bible – nearly 700x!

16. The land of Cush in black Africa appears in the OT about as many times in the OT as the land of Canaan in the Pentateuch, which is where Canaan’s land is repeatedly promised to Israel, but many have never heard of Cush or God’s plan for that land [some translations render the Hebrew Cush as “Ethiopia,” but this should not be confused with the modern borders of that country, think Sudan as well in modern geography]

17. God tells Amos He views black Africans the same as the Jews (Amos 9:7 ESV: “Are you not like the Cushites to me, O people of Israel?” declares the Lord. NIV: “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?” v. 12 goes on to speak of nations called by Yahweh’s name, plural nations not just Israel. A verse from this chapter is also quoted in Acts 15 to demonstrate that Gentiles joining the church is consistent with OT teaching)

18. Young Jesus lived on the continent of Africa for some time before living in Nazareth/Galilee, by God’s order to his family by an angel (Matthew 2:13-14). The NT records that it was important for God’s Son to come out of this African country in keeping with OT Scripture (Matthew 2:15) 

19. A man from Cyrene in Africa helps Jesus carry His cross (Mark 15:21), a man who became part of a noted Christian family (Romans 16:13)
20. In the book of Acts before the gospel goes to the Samaritans or Greeks or Romans (Acts 9, 10, etc.), God sends the good news to an African Ethiopian on his way back to his continent (Acts 8), and the eunuch in turn brings the Christian gospel to Africa, according to the church fathers

21. Some of the first and most fruitful evangelists to non-Jews in the book of Acts were Africans from Cyrene, and they saw great blessings and conversions (Acts 11:19-24)

22. In the place where believers were first called Christians (Acts 11:26), the first church leaders include a man from Africa (13:1; Lucius of Cyrene) and another man nicknamed “black” in Latin (Simeon, NET Bible notes says this refers to his black complexion, and most modern commentators on Acts agree this church leader was black, though it’s not stated what country he was from)

23. A preacher in the NT who has some of the highest language of praise for his power in preaching, is a man who Acts says was a native of a prominent city in Africa (Alexandria was where Apollos was born, Acts 18:24-28)

24. Paul and his companions more than once travelled on a ship from this African city (Acts 27:6, 28:11)

25. The Apostle Paul himself on one occasion was mistaken for an African from Egypt. He was asked “aren’t you the Egyptian?” (Acts 21:38)  

It has been a blessing for me to be worshipping with these brothers and sisters in Africa that the Bible has so much to say about in God’s heart and plan for them. I hope you have been blessed by this journey and study as I have and that you would be moved to pray for your brothers and sisters here and for those who have not yet come to worship Jesus as Lord, that the Lord would haste the day when every tribe and tongue on this continent and to the ends of the earth will have worshippers around the throne of Jesus their Redeemer (a theme that literally runs from Genesis to Revelation).