[Ethio’pians]
Some of the descendants of Cush, the son of Ham. They are represented on the Egyptian monuments as darker in colour than the Egyptians. Without being black they may have been the darkest of any people known to the Israelites, as the question is asked: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" Jer 13:23. As ’Ham’ signifies ’black,’ he was probably a dark man, and it is implied in Son 1:6 that the sun causes the complexion to be black or dark, therefore the farther south in Africa (to the Equator), the darker would be the skin. This, with degraded habits, had changed the features of those in the centre of Africa, from the more cultivated sons of Ham in the north. The Ethiopians appear to have been nearly as far advanced in the arts and sciences as the Egyptians, but some of the monuments in the south are by Egyptian kings. As far south as Aboo-Simbel, about 22° 20’ N, are two temples hewn in the rock, which rank in interest next to the ruins at Thebes; these are attributed to Rameses 2 king of Egypt, with colossal statues of himself cut out of the solid rock. It was an Ethiopian who befriended Jeremiah and drew him out of the pit, for which his life was spared. Jer 38:7; Jer 38:10; Jer 38:12; Jer 39:16. It was a pious Ethiopian, of great authority with his queen, to whom Philip preached of Jesus, and then baptised him. Act 8:27.
Ethiopians are only twice mentioned in the NT, and then in the same passage, viz. Act_8:27, where Candace, queen of (the) Ethiopians, and her åὐíïῦ÷ïò äõíÜóôçò are mentioned in connexion with Philip the Deacon (see articles Candace, Ethiopian Eunuch, and Philip). The word h there doubtless, as in the OT, the Greek equivalent of the Heb. Kûshî. It seems probable that Áἰèßïø (?═ ‘Redface’) is only a Graecized form of some native word, not a proper description of their facial characteristic, but what that word was can only be conjectured. ‘Ethiopia’ in NT times would appear to mean the southern part of Egypt, now called the Sûdan, the ancient kingdom of Meroë. In earlier days Napata, a town on the Nile, somewhat north or Meroë, which was likewise on the Nile, had been the capital; but though Napata still retained some of its prestige as the sacred city, yet the seat of government had been removed to Meroë. Another kingdom, that of Axum in the mountain region of Abyssinia proper, seems to have taken its rise about the middle of the 1st cent. a.d., but that does not come into view in our present inquiry.
C. L. Feltoe.