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Bible Dictionaries
Zerah
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or 1. Younger twin son with Pharez of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38:30; 1 Chronicles 2:6; Matthew 1:3).
2. Son of Simeon (1 Chronicles 4:24). (See ZOHAR in Genesis 46:10.
3. A Gershonite Levite, son of Iddo or Adaiah (1 Chronicles 6:21; 1 Chronicles 6:41).
4. The Ethiopian (Cushite) invader defeated by ASA . About this very time there reigned a king Azerch Amar in Ethiopia, whose monuments are found at Napata. The Hebrew abbreviated the name into Zerah. Also an Ozorchon occupied the throne from 956 to 933 B.C. Ozorchon II. succeeded to the throne in right of his wife, sister of the previous king, and so may have been an Ethiopian; but the former is more probable. The defeat of the army of such a great world power as Egypt or Ethiopia is unparalleled in Israel's history, and could only have been through the divine aid.
"Jehovah smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled, and Asa pursued them unto Gerar, and the Ethiopians were overthrown that they could not recover themselves, for they were destroyed before Jehovah and before His host, and they carried away much spoil" (2 Chronicles 14:9-13). The greatness of Egypt which Shishak had caused diminished at his death. His immediate successors were of no note in the monuments. Hence Asa was able in the first ten years of his reign to recruit his forces and guard against such another invasion as that of Shishak had been. Zerah seems to have taken advantage of Egypt's weakness to extort permission to march his enormous force, composed of the same nationalities (Ethiopians and Lubims: 2 Chronicles 16:8; 2 Chronicles 12:3) as those of the preceding invader Shishak, through Egypt, into Judah.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Zerah'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/z/zerah.html. 1949.
