Zerah

Zerah or Zérach (זֶרַח / זָרַח "Sunrise", Standard Hebrew Zéraḥ / Záraḥ, Tiberian Hebrew Zéraḥ / Zāraḥ) refers to five different people in the Hebrew Bible.

A Righteous Edomite

Zerah was the name of an Edomite Chief. He was listed as the second son of Reuel, son of Basemath, who was Ishmael's daughter and one of the wives of Esau the brother of Jacob (Israel) (Genesis 36:13 and 36:17).

The Cushite

Zerah the Cushite, is an individual mentioned by the Book of Chronicles as having invaded the Kingdom of Judah with an enormous army, in the days of Asa. According to the text, when Zerah's army reached that of Asa at Zephathah, Zerah's army was utterly defeated, by divine intervention, and Asa's forces collected a large volume of spoils of war.

The invasion, and its implied time-frame, means that the traditional view was to consider this Zerah to have actually been Osorkon II or Osorkon I, both being rulers of Egypt. Osorkon II, is known to have entered the Kingdom of Judah, with a huge army, in 853BC; however, rather than attacking Judah, the army was just passing through, on its way to attack the Assyrian forces. In addition, Asa's reign is traditionally dated to have ended in 873BC. In the Book of Kings, which doesn't mention Asa's defeat of Zerah, Asa is described as being extremely weak from a defensive point of view, and Biblical scholars regard the idea that Asa could defeat an enormous Egyptian army to be untenable.