Lubims

Lubims (also Lubim or Libyans) designates the inhabitants of Libya, the North African territory west of Egypt along the Mediterranean coast. They appear in two historical accounts involving the Egyptian king Shishak's (Sheshonq I) invasion of Judah in the fifth year of Rehoboam: Shishak's army included Lubims, Sukkiim, and Ethiopians (2 Chr. 12:3). They appear again in the reign of Asa of Judah, when the Ethiopian Zerah led a vast army of Ethiopians and Lubims against Judah and was defeated at Mareshah (2 Chr. 16:8).

The Lubims/Libyans were a semi-nomadic Berber people of North Africa who from at least the New Kingdom period served as mercenary soldiers in the Egyptian army. Several pharaohs of the Twenty-Second through Twenty-Fourth Dynasties were of Libyan origin (including Shishak himself), reflecting the significant Libyan military presence in Egypt during the first millennium B.C. The Lubims in the biblical texts represent the multi-ethnic composition of Egyptian-allied armies that threatened Judah during the Divided Monarchy period.