Cush, son of Ham, is traditionally regarded as the ancestor of the Cushites or Ethiopians, and his descendants lived in a land known as the land of Cush. The word Kush/Cusch has two meanings: It can be translated either as ‘bow’ or as ‘land of burnt-faced peoples or the homeland of dark people.

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In some versions of the Bible, ‘Kush’ is translated as ‘Ethiopia’. Brieftly, the term "Ethiopian" is derived from the Greek name Αἰθιοπία (Aithiopia) which comes from Αἰθίοψ (Aithíops) that is a composition of two Greek words: αἴθω (aíthō,) "burned" + ὤψ (ṓps) "face"; and is correctly translated into a noun as "burned faced" and into an adjective as "red-brown". From Homer's time, the exonym was used to refer to the dark-skinned people living in regions below the Sahara and in what was then known as Nubia. However, in biblical times, the terms ‘Kush’’, ‘Kushite’ or ‘Ethiopian’ used in the Hebrew Bible did not refer to the inhabitants of the country now known as Ethiopia, but sometimes to black skin, sometimes to black Africa, more specifically Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Africa.

• Jeremiah 13:23 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?"

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​When we examine ancient maps dating from the Middle Ages, we can clearly observe that most of sub-Saharan Africa, including the Congo Basin, East Africa and part of southern Africa, was known as Ethiopia or "Ethiopia Sub Egypto”..

If at the time the first Bible (of Gutenberg) was written in 1455, Ethiopia referred to the whole of sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa on geographical maps, it implies that the biblical Ethiopians do not generally refer to those who occupy the country that today bears the name Ethiopia, nor does the biblical term Ethiopia refer to the modern country that bears that name, but rather to the black population who mainly inhabited the following regions:

• Congo Basin, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Uganda, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe. But also neighbouring countries such as Congo Brazzavile, Cameroon, Gabon, South Africa and South Sudan.

Ex-Abyssinia is not biblical Ethiopia

​Note that the country that now bears the biblical name Ethiopia was formerly known as Abyssinia throughout the Middle Ages. It wasn't until 1932 that Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) was renamed "Bank of Ethiopia" after being indemnified by Emperor Haile Selassie. And in 1945, after regaining its independence and taking part in the founding of the United Nations, Abyssinia was officially registered as Ethiopia, making the name Abyssinia obsolete.

We must then understand that when the Bible and the Scriptures speak of Ethiopia, they are not referring exclusively to ex-Abyssinia, but rather to the whole of sub-Saharan and South Africa. It is therefore historically erroneous and biblically misleading to teach that only Ethiopians from ex-Abyssinia, in other words modern Ethiopians, are the “true biblical Ethiopians”

You be the judge, and we encourage you to do your own research.