Zerah

Zerah was the name of an Edomite chief. He was listed as the second son of Reuel, son of Basemath, who was Ishmael's daughter and one of the wives of Esau the brother of Jacob (Israel) (Genesis 36:13, 17).

According to the Book of Genesis, Zerah was the son of Tamar and of Judah, and was the twin of Pharez (Genesis 38:30). This same Zerah is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:3.

Zerah is also listed as the ancestor of Achan, who was stoned to death as recounted in the Book of Joshua (Joshua 7:18, 24), where Achan is called the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah.

The Bible also identifies Zerah as the name of the founder of one of the Simeonite clans.[2]

Zerah the Cushite is mentioned by the Book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 14:9–15). There he is said to have invaded the Kingdom of Judah with an enormous army, in the days of Asa). According to the text, when Zerah's army reached that of Asa at the valley of Zephathah near Mareshah, Zerah's army was utterly defeated, by divine intervention, and Asa's forces collected a large volume of spoils of war.

The invasion, and its implied time-frame, means that the traditional view was to consider this Zerah to have actually been Usarkon II or Usarkon I,[3] both being rulers of Egypt. Usarkon II is known to have entered the Kingdom of Judah with a huge army in 853 BCE; however, rather than attacking Judah, the army was just passing through, on its way to attack the Assyrian forces. In addition, Asa's reign is traditionally dated to have ended in 873 BCE. In the Book of Kings, which doesn't mention Asa's defeat of Zerah, Asa is described as being extremely weak from a defensive point of view (1 Kings 15:16–22) and Biblical scholars regard the idea that Asa could defeat an enormous Egyptian army to be untenable.[4]

Furthermore, Cushite refers to Kush (historic Ethiopia), it was unclear until now why either Usarkon should be described as a Cushite,[5] The name “Zerah” is a very likely a corruption of “Usarkon” ( U-Serak-on),to which it closely resembles ( see Petrie, Egypt and Israel, 74), and most scholars now identify Zerah with Usarkon II. The publication by Naville (1891) of an inscription in which Usarkon II claims to have invaded “ Lower and Upper Palestine suggests this Pharoah as the victor over Asa, However, the chronicle of the Scripture contend that Asa won the battle.

It is a possibility that Cushites gained dominance in Upper and Lower Egypt during the 9th and 8th century. Zerah was most likely a Cushite of Nubia located in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan who came to power as ruler of Egypt or at the very least a Nubian commander of The Egyptian/Nubian Armies. Herodotus the ‘Father of Histories,’ wrote that there were (18) Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt. (Isaiah 18:2) tell us that the Cushitic ( Ethiopians) were feared far and wide for conquests and destruction ( being a powerful nation who dominated ancient kingdoms. Cushites were a very formidable people who were expert archers famous in ancient world for surprise attacks with the bow and arrow. Cushite are also known as ‘Kassites” who inhabit both sides of the Red Sea in Africa and Arabia. Kassite (כישי), and that it consequently refers to a Babylonian (Kassite). Josephus gives an account of the nation of Cush/ Kassites. “ For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Cushites” (Antiquities of the Jews).[5]

The Book of Chronicles mentions a Zerah who was a Gershonite Levite (1 Chr. 6:6; 6:26).

Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Zerah.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons. Missing or empty |title= (help)

• Zerah the Kushite: A New Proposal Regarding His Identity (with Peter James), in: P. James and P. van der Veen (eds.), Solomon and Shishak, BAR International Series 2732, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2015