an empire. Traditional Euro-centric scholarship has interpreted verse 9:7 to suggest that the Lord is looking rather unfavorably upon Israel, comparing them to a distant and despised people. However, it does not take much digging to realize that the Ethiopian kingdom was at its prime at the time when Amos was prophesying. In the context of the passage, where God is reflecting on all the times that he has blessed Israel and picked her out of the mire, it seems more appropriate that the reference to the Cu*censored*es is made to imply that God has not left the people and in fact he seems to promise that he bless them in the same manner that he has blessed the Ethiopian empire of that particular dynasty.The book of Zephaniah provides a unique look at the black presence in the Old Testament, through the suggestion that the author himself may be dark skinned. The genealogy that is given in Zephaniah 1:1 traces his blood line back four generations to Hezekiah, most probably the Judean king. The most interesting part of the genealogy is not, however, the possible relation of the prophet to Hezekiah, but rather his fathers name, Cushi. As is the case with any biblical question where there is no explicit reference to the mans race, there are multiple theories that attempt to explain the name, or the reference, or the inclusion of the genealogy in a manner as to erase the presence of black blood in one of the authors of the bible. However, it seems that we have already shown that the Hebrew race was a mixed race, and with the full knowledge of the biblical tradition of names holding significant meaning, it seems no stretch of the imagination to suggest that Cushi was in fact a native Judean, but more than that, he was a most likely a Judean who also happened to be a black man. Knowing that Zephaniah was born to Cushi, it seems only logical that he too would be a native black Judean man, who the Lord spoke through as one of the minor proph...
