Zerah

Sunrise. (1.) An “Ethiopian,” probably Osorkon II., the successor of Shishak on the throne of Egypt. With an enormous army, the largest we read of in Scripture, he invaded the kingdom of Judah in the days of Asa (2 Chr. 14:9-15). He reached Zephathah, and there encountered the army of Asa. This is the only instance “in all the annals of Judah of a victorious encounter in the field with a first-class heathen power in full force.” The Egyptian host was utterly routed, and the Hebrews gathered “exceeding much spoil.” Three hundred years elapsed before another Egyptian army, that of Necho (B.C. 609), came up against Jerusalem.

(2.) A son of Tamar (Gen. 38:30); called also Zara (Matt. 1:3).

(3.) A Gershonite Levite (1 Chr. 6:21, 41).

1. A son of Reuel, son of Esau, (Genesis 36:13; 1 Chronicles 1:37) and one of the "dukes" or phylarchs of the Edomites. (Genesis 36:17) (B.C. after 1760.)
2. Less properly, Zarah, twin son, with his elder brother Pharez, of Judah and Tamar. (Genesis 38:30; 1 Chronicles 2:4; Matthew 1:3) (B.C. about 1728.) His descendants were called Zarhites, Ezrahites and Izrahites. (Numbers 26:20; 1 Kings 4:31; 1 Chronicles 27:8,11)
3. Son of Simeon, (1 Chronicles 4:24) called Zohar in (Genesis 46:10) (B.C. 1706.)
4. A Gershonite Levite, son of Iddo or Adaiah. (1 Chronicles 6:21,41) (B.C. 1043.)
5. The Ethiopian or Cushite, an invader of Judah, defeated by Asa about B.C. 941. [Asa] Zerah is probably the Hebrew name of Usarken I., second king of the Egyptian twenty-second dynasty; or perhaps more probably Usarken II his second successor. In the fourteenth year of Asa, Zerah the Ethiopian, with a mighty army of or million, invaded his kingdom, and advanced unopposed in the field as far as the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. The Egyptian monuments enable us to picture the general disposition of Zerah’s army. The chariots formed the first corps in a single or double line; behind them, massed in phalanxes, were heavy-armed troops; probably on the flanks stood archers and horsemen in lighter formations. After a prayer by Asa, his army attacked the Egyptians and defeated them. The chariots, broken by the charge and with horses made unmanageable by flights of arrows must have been forced back upon the cumbrous host behind. So complete was the overthrow that the Hebrews could capture and spoil the cities around Gerah which must have been in alliance with Zerah. The defeat of the Egyptian army is without parallel in the history of the Jews. On no other occasion did an Israelite army meet an army of one of the great powers and defeat it.

ze'-ra (zerach, meaning uncertain):

(1) In Ge 38:30; 46:12; Nu 26:20; Jos 7:1,18,24; 22:20; 1Ch 2:4,6; 9:6; Ne 11:24; Mt 1:3, younger twin-son of Judah and Tamar, and an ancestor of Achan. In Nu 26:20; Jos 7:17 f he is the head of the Zerahites (also 1Ch 27:11,13). the King James Version has "Zarah" in Ge 38:30; 46:12, and "Zarhites" for "Zerahites" in Numbers, Joshua and 1 Chronicles. See Curtis (Chronicles, 84 f) for identification of Ezrahite with Zerahite.

(2) Edomites:

(a) an Edomite chief (Ge 36:13,17; 1Ch 1:37);

(b) father of an Edomite king (Ge 36:33; 1Ch 1:44).

(3) Levites:

(a) 1Ch 6:21 (Hebrew verse 6);

(b) 1Ch 6:41 (Hebrew verse 26).

(4) Head of the Zerahites (Nu 26:13, the King James Version "Zarhites"; 1Ch 4:24). In Nu 26:13 = "Zohar" of Ge 46:10; Ex 6:15.

See ZOHAR, (2).

(5) Cushite king (2Ch 14:9). See the next article

David Francis Roberts

(zerach ha-kushi (2Ch 14:9); Zare): A generation ago the entire story of Zerah's conquest of Asa, coming as it did from a late source (2Ch 14:9-15), was regarded as "apocryphal": "If the incredibilities are deducted nothing at all is left" (Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, 207, 208); but most modern scholars, while accepting certain textual mistakes and making allowance for customary oriental hyperbole in description; accept this as an honest historical narrative, "nothing" in the Egyptian inscriptions being "inconsistent" with it (Nicol in BD; and compare Sayce, HCM, 362-64). The name "Zerah" is a "very likely corruption" of "Usarkon" (U-Serak-on), which it closely resembles (see Petrie, Egypt and Israel, 74), and most writers now identify Zerah with Usarkon II, though the Egyptian records of this particular era are deficient and some competent scholars still hold to Usarkon I (Wiedemann, Petrie, McCurdy, etc.). The publication by Naville (1891) of an inscription in which Usarkon II claims to have invaded "Lower and Upper Palestine" seemed to favor this Pharaoh as the victor over Asa; but the chronological question is difficult (Eighth Memoir of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, 51). The title "the Cushite" (Hebrew) is hard to understand. There are several explanations possible.

(1) Wiedemann holds that this may refer to a real Ethiopian prince, who, though unrecorded in the monuments, may have been reigning at the Asa era. There is so little known from this era "that it is not beyond the bounds of probability for an Ethiopian invader to have made himself master of the Nile Valley for a time" (Geschichte von Alt-Aegypten, 155).

(2) Recently it has been the fashion to refer this term "Cushite" to some unknown ruler in South or North Arabia (Winckler, Cheyne, etc.). The term "Cushite" permits this, for although it ordinarily corresponds to ETHIOPIA (which see), yet sometimes it designates the tract of Arabia which must be passed over in order to reach Ethiopia (Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of Ancient East, I, 280) or perhaps a much larger district (see BD; EB; Hommel, Ancient Hebrew Tradition; Winckler, KAT, etc.). This view, however, is forced to explain the geographical and racial terms in the narrative differently from the ordinary Biblical usage (see Cheyne, EB). Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie points out that, according to the natural sense of the narrative, this army must have been Egyptian for

(a) after the defeat it fled toward Egypt, not eastward toward Arabia;

(b) the cities around Gerar (probably Egyptian towns on the frontier of Palestine), toward which they naturally fled when defeated, were plundered;

(c) the invaders were Cushim and Lubim (Libyans), and this could only be the case in an Egyptian army; (d) Mareshah is a well-known town close to the Egyptian frontier (History of Egypt, III, 242-43; compare Konig, Funf neue arab. Landschaftsnamen im Altes Testament, 53-57).

(3) One of the Usarkons might be called a "Cushite" in an anticipatory sense, since in the next dynasty (XXIII) Egypt was ruled by Ethiopian kings.

Camden M. Cobern