Poems about the Southern Powers: For three chapters we turn to the far south. Cush covers an area corresponding to the very south of modern Egypt and the northern part of Sudan. A Cushite dynasty ruled Egypt itself at the end of the eighth century, so this poem about Cush is as much a poem about Egypt (cf. 20:1–6).

20:1–6 This final section of chapters 18–20 brings together Egypt and Cush, the two peoples who have been the subject of chapters 18–19, and completes the calamity-promise-calamity pattern that parallels chapters 15–16. It also makes explicit the direct implication that runs through these prophecies: do not trust in these peoples or boast in them or you will end up afraid and put to shame. They will let you down, either because they are deliberately deceitful or because they are …