this prophecy would have been potent; YHWH would cause the very nations the northern powers could not conquer to bow to a restored Judah. Deutero-Isaiah’s use of the Cushites in his prophecies, though establishing a hierarchy of human beings and representing the Cushites negatively, neither represents the racialization of Cushites or “Africans.” The Cushites and their allies are included in these texts because they were nations not under the dominion of Babylon and Persia during the author’s lifetime.