ZERAH
los:
ZERAII
and [or " for"] the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves." This last clause seems to relate to an irremediable overthrow at the first ; and, indeed, had it not been so, the pursuit would not have been carried, and, as it seems, at once, beyou.d the frontier. So complete was the overthrow that the Hebrews could capture and spoil the cities around (icrar, which must have been in alliance with Zerah. From these cities they took very much spoil, and they also smote '• the tents of cattle, and carried away sheep and camels in abundance" (2 Chron. xiv, 9-15). IMorc seems to have been captured from the Arabs than from the army of Zerah : probably the arm\' consisted of a nucleus of regular troops, and a great body of tributaries, who would have scattered in all directions, leaving their country open to reprisals. On his return to Jerusa- lem, Asa was met by Azariah, who exhorted him and the people to be faithful to God. Accordingly Asa made a second reformation, and collected his subjects at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteeirth year, and made a covenant, and offered of thfe spoil " seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep" (xv, 1-15). From this it would appear that the battle was fought in the preceding winter. The success of Asa, and the manifest blessing that attended him, drew to him Ephrai- imites, Manassites, and Simeonites. His father had al- ready captured cities in the Israelitish territory (xiii, 19), and he held cities in Mount Ephraim (xv, 8), and then was at peace with Israel. Simeon, always at the mer- cy of a powerful king of Judah, would have naturally turned to him. Never was the house of David stronger after the defection of the ten tribes; but soon the king fell into the wicked error, so constantly to be repeated, of calling the heathen to aid him against the kindred Israelites, and hired Ben-hadad, king of Syria-Damascus, to lay their cities waste, when Hanani the prophet re- called to him the great victory he had achieved when he trusted in God (xvi, 1-9). The after-years of Asa were troubled with wars (ver. 9) ; but they were with Baasha (1 Kings xv, 16, 32). Zerah and his people had been too signally crushed to attack him again. See Asa.
'4. The identification of Zera has occasioned some dif- ference of opinion. The term Cushite or Ethiopian may imply that he was of Arabian Cush; the principal objection to which is that history affords no indication that Arabia had at that epoch, or from its system of government could well have, any king so powerful as Zerah. That he was of Abyssinia or African Ethiopia, is resisted by the difficulty of seeing how this "huge host" could have obtained a passage through Egypt, as it must have done to reach Judaea. If we could sup- pose, with Champollion (Precis, p. 257), whom Coquerel follows (Btog. Sac?: S.V.), that Zerah the Cushite was the then king of Egypt, of an Ethiopian dynasty, this difficulty would be satisfactorily met. But lately it has been supposed that Zerah is the Hebrew name of Usar- ken I, second king of the Egyptian twenty-second dy- nasty; or perhaps more probably Usarken II, his second successor. This is a tempting explanation, but cannot be received without question, and it is not deemed sat- isfactory by Rosellini, Wilkinson, Sharpe, and others. Jahn hazards an ingenious conjecture, that Zerah was king of Cush on both sides of the Red Sea, that is, of both the Arabian and African Ethiopia; and thus pro- vides him a sufficient power without subjecting him to the necessity of passing through Egypt. There are two other suppositions which are not destitute of prob- ability. It is conceived either that he was a native Ethiopian general who, on this occasion, commanded the armies of Egypt, or that he was an Ethiopian gen- eral who led an Ethiopian army through Egypt, now separate from Ethiopia, and invaded Judah tlirough Egypt. This question is a wider one than seems at first sight. We have to inquire whether the army of Zerah was that of an Egyptian king, and, if the rejjly be af- firmative, whether it was led by either Usarken I or II.
The war of Shishak had reduced the angle of Arabia that divided Egypt from TaU'stine. I'robably Shishak was unable to attack the Assyrians, and endeavored, by securing this tract, to guard the ai)proach to Egypt. If the army of Zerah were Egyptian,.this would account for its coiniection with the people of (icrar and the pastoral tribes of the neighborhood. The sudden de- cline of the power of Egypt after the reign of Shishak would be explained by the overthrow of the Egyptian army about thirty years later.
The composition of the army of Zerah, of Cushim and Lubim (2 Chron. xvi, 8), closely resembles that of Shishak, of Lubim, Sukkim, and Cushim (xii, 3): both armies also had chariots and horsemen (xii, 3; xvi, 8). The Cushim might have been of an Asiatic Cush, but the Lubim can only have been Africans. The army, therefore, must have been of a king of Egypt, or Ethi- opia above Egypt. The uncertainty is removed by our finding that the kings of the twenty-second dynasty employed mercenaries of the Maskincasha, a Libyan tribe, which apparently supplied the most important part of their hired force. The army, moreover, as con- sisting partly, if not wholly, of a mercenary force, and with chariots and horsemen, is, save in the horsemfln, exactly what the Egyptian army of the empire would have been, with the one change of the increased impor- tance given to the mercenaries, which we know marked it under the twenty-second dvnasty. That the array was that of an Egy[>tian king therefore cannot be doubted.