A Million Screaming Zulus

[RugMatic]

A Million Screaming Zulus


King Asa defeated a million Cushites and their 300 chariots, 2 Chronicles 14:9-12.

Topic For Debate: Did this really happen? Is it historically plausible?


I know they weren't Zulus, but African warriors were said to scream as they fought and were widely feared. The ancient Cushites had the same notoriety as the Zulus had centuries later.

According to our text they were lousy strategists. They sent a million screaming Zulus, but only a meager 300 chariots.

According to historians Cush and Egypt were a united kingdom. Cush needed Egypt's grain and Egypt needed Cush's muscle. Egypt seemed perfectly content to allow the nation of Judah to exist as a buffer zone to potential northern threats, Assyria, Babylon, Persia etc. Judah was allied with Egypt. Judah needed its grain and its protection. Why would Egypt send a million screaming Zulus to obliterate Judah? Would cause unstability in the region. Seems, I don't know, ...wreckless

[JehovahsWitness]

Their military might was feared Isaiah 37:9, and ancient, Genesis 10:8,9.

How is having a formidable miliary force ... racist?

[JehovahsWitness]

The Bible refers to Ethiopia as the land ... destined to be overthrown by birds and beasts Isaiah 18:6.

The land will be overthrown by "birds and beasts" ? What does that mean? Land is can be taken, overgrown or possibly infested -(with creatures) but overthrow (which means "remove forcibly from power") is a somewhat improbable interpretation of Isaiah 18:6.

The verse actually begins with the plural pronoun (They) so it is unlikely that it refers to "the land" of the Ethiopians. Rather most commentators agree that the verse refers to the Ethiopian military, predicted to be defeated, the bodies of the soldiers left to rot in the open fields. Note the King James Version

ISAIAH 18:6

They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey And for the beasts of the earth; The birds of prey will summer on them, And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them

Obviously poetic language to describe bodies denied a decent burial.




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