Cushan appears only once in the entire Bible, in the final chapter of the book of the prophet Habakkuk.
In the middle of a song that recalls great deeds of the LORD, the prophet says he saw “the tents of Cushan in distress,” alongside the tents of Midian, which trembled.
Practically nothing else is known about this name. Most scholars understand it as another way of referring to the people or region of Midian, or a group close to it, in northwestern Arabia. It should not be confused with Cush, the region along the upper Nile mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament.
Even as a brief mention, the verse has a clear purpose: to show that the LORD’s power reaches even the most distant and nomadic peoples, capable of trembling at the mere approach of God.
