Nimrod?

[waves]

Does anyone know about Nimrod and his significance in the Bible? Years ago I remember hearing non-biblical information about Nimrod and how bad he was.

 

[Kerensa]

It seems there are a lot of legends and traditions about him, but no-one knows for sure — all the theories about him are from various sources outside the Bible, which may or may not have any truth to them. The Bible says very little about him, except that he was the great-grandson of Noah and a ruler of Mesopotamia, so the rest is largely speculation: Nimrod - Wikipedia

 

[Radrook]

One thing to keep in mind is that Nimrod lived shortly after the Flood and that men as yet had not organized themselves into nations. His aggressive self glorifying behavior was a re-emergence or reflection of the sinful pre-flood attitude characteristic of the men of renown who flourished on the Earth and are suspected of having been Nephilm.

One translation uses the term, "great hunter in opposition to God" instead of "great hunter before the Lord".

This of course harmonizes with what occurred later at his city of Babel where God confused languages in order to prevent Nimrod's ambitions to centralize mankind in the geographical location with the center of worship being the Tower from succeeding.

Here is a brief commentary:

Matthew Poole's Commentary
He was a mighty hunter, first of beasts, and by that occasion of men. For when men were few, and lived dispersedly, and wild beasts abounded, and most of all in those parts, by hunting and destroying of those beasts he got much reputation and favour with men, who thereby were secured in their dwellings. In confidence hereof, and having this occasion to gather great companies of the youngest and strongest men together to himself, by their help he established a tyranny and absolute power over men, insnaring, hunting after, and destroying like beasts all those men who opposed his dominion. Tyrants and persecutors are oft in Scripture called fowlers and hunters, as Psalm 91:3 Jeremiah 16:16 Lamentations 3:52, am 4:18.

Genesis 10:9 Commentaries: He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD."

 

[WebersHome]

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● Gen 6:4 . .There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

The Hebrew word for "giants" in that passage is nephiyl (nef-eel') or nephil (nef-eel') and I have no clue why the KJV's scholars translated it giants because it doesn't mean that at all. For one thing; it's an ambiguous word with more than one meaning. It can indicate someone who cuts, knocks, or brings things down, or a killer; and/or bullies and tyrants.

Now; granted that some bullies are big guys; but not all tyrants are big guys. Take for example Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, He isn't especially imposing but Mr. Jong Il sure knows how to exercise power excessively and brutally.

In other words: nephiyl doesn't necessarily indicate a special race of people; but simply people whose ambition is to dominate others; even if they have to completely destroy their culture and kill them all off to do it; viz: nephiyl personalities are not good followers nor are they very good team players. It can be accurately said of nephiyl personalities that they would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. In other words: if they can't conquer God, then they would just as soon have nothing to do with Him.

Historical examples of nephiyl types would be men like Genghis Khan of Mongolia, and Alexander the Great of Greece; Napoleon of France, Chandragupta Maurya of India, shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo of Japan, conquistador Hernando Cortes of Spain, Timur: founder of the Timurid dynasty, and Zahir-ud din Muhammad Babur: founder of the Mughal dynasty that ruled the Indian subcontinent for over three centuries.

Q: If all the nephiyl types drowned in the Flood; then how did their characteristics manage to resurface down the road?

A: Well; from whence did nephiyl types originate in the first place? Same place every other personality type originated: from Adam's genes; viz: since Noah and his wife, and his sons and their wives, were Adam's descendants, then nephiyl characteristics survived the Flood by riding it out in the DNA of the people aboard the ark.

After the Flood, mankind multiplied and scattered out in individual clans; leadership was pretty much restricted to local patriarchal Dons and Sheiks.

But Nimrod wasn't content with local rule. He was resolved not only to be head and shoulders above his neighbors-- not only to be eminent among them but to lord it over them.

The same spirit that actuated the mighty men and the men of renown prior to the Flood, (by reason of whom the Flood came) now revived in Nimrod. There are some in whom ambition, achievement, and affectation of dominion seem to be bred in the bone. Nothing short of hell itself will humble and break the proud, domineering spirits of men such as those.

Nimrod is interesting. He's a Nephilistic personage with humble beginnings: first as a professional hunter; probably supplying meat to frontier towns and selling pelts at trading posts. That was likely Nimrod's career path up until his exploits became famous and he began to realize it was far more profitable to go into politics.

Lots of great men, some good and some bad, had humble beginnings-- Abraham Lincoln, King David, and even Hitler. Timely circumstances, and fortuitous events, catapulted those blokes up to very high levels of control over their fellow men.

A contemporary case in point is US President Barak Hussein Obama: a man who had little to no chance of winning a US Senate seat had it not been for his shoo-in opponent's carnal indiscretions.

From thence, the voting public's disgust with the Republican party, coupled with their infatuation with the color of Mr. Obama's skin (he's not really Black, his mother was White), practically assured his election to America's highest federal office. He was but a junior senator with like zero executive experience; yet there he was flying around the world in Air Force One.

To this very day Nimrod is still known as the outdoorsman who would be king. He was such a famous icon of that day that his example became descriptive of others who worked their way to the top like he did-- men of vision, daring, energy, strong personal ambition, and dogged perseverance.

The common personality trait, among such men, is their strong desire not just to govern, but to quite dominate people. There are those for whom it isn't enough to win; no, it isn't enough for people like that to win: everyone else has to lose. They don't want 50% market share, nor even 90% no, they're content with nothing less than 100%

Actually, Nimrod was one of the great men of history, though so little is written about him. He was one of the first statesmen to successfully create a sort of European Union; and it was such a solid alliance that only divine intervention could bring it down.

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[raschau]

Many scholars believe the Nimrod character is a collective amalgam of the early emperors of Akkad, particularly Sargon the Great and his grandson and third successor, Naram-Sin, under whom the Empire reached its greatest extent, and those of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Neo-Assyrian Empires which succeeded it.

It is worth nothing that the story of Moses closely parallels the birth-legend of Sargon. Both were placed in reed baskets, set upon a river, and rescued by their respective royal households. Sargon became cup-bearer (a kind of regent or Prime Minister) to King Ur-Zababa of Kish, but overthrew him when Ur-Zababa conspired to kill him with the Sumerian king (Lugal) Zagesi. He then conquered Zagesi's confederation of city-states, and centralized control in Akkad.

In other words, Akkad is considered by the Bible and historians alike to be the world's first empire-proper, and Sargon the first emperor. See Genesis 10:8, 10-11 -- Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man... the beginning of his kingdom was Babel [Babylon], Erech [Uruk], Accad [Akkad], and Calneh, in the land of Shinar [Sumer]... from that land he went into Assyria... This matches almost perfectly with what history knows of Sargon the Great: he conquered Sumer and established an empire from Akkad that later split and became Babylon and Assyria.

Cush/Kish is probably a coincidence, but an interesting one -- Kish did 'father' Sargon in a sense, because he did not know who his father was, and his mother cast him away, so he became a "Kishite."

It is no surprise that even many generations later, the Hebrews viewed Sargon as a "mighty man" -- the first, even -- and a "hunter" (literally* and perhaps figuratively) before the LORD -- a great conquerer, seemingly god-like and ravenous against his enemies -- the same goes for Naram-Sin, from whom the name 'Nimrod' is probably derived.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III invaded Israel, demanded tribute from Ahaz of Judah, and exiled the Israelites living in Samaria to Assyria where they were enslaved, killed, and/or forced to adopt paganism. Sargon II ended the kingdom of Israel and exiled its inhabitants, now known as the "ten lost tribes." Sennacherib besieged Judah; Ashurbanipal subjugated it. These were, perhaps, the "hunters" -- *ritual lion hunts were an important Assyrian tradition -- Ashurbanipal was particularly known for his elaborate Nineveh palace reliefs of the royal hunt.

Nimrod's significance in the Bible is this: the Israelites viewed the Neo-Assyrians as the supreme enemies of God, idolaters who defiled Israel and forced their strange deities on God's people through conquest and subjugation -- hunters, literally and figuratively -- descendants of the "first mighty man on earth." Sargon's legacy is portrayed as a profane imitation of the power that belongs to God alone (i.e., he was seemingly invincible, an almighty ruler, etc.), and yet he was also passively revered as "a mighty man before the LORD" -- a begrudging and mildly sarcastic phrase.

Nimrod represents all of the negative, profane, and blasphemous tendencies of Sargon's successors, but he also represents the latent pride the Hebrews must have had in him as the "founding father" of Semitic dominance over the region.

The character of Nimrod is neither entirely bad, nor at all particularly good, but rather cautionary and somewhat mournful, as if to say "if only our people had served the LORD and not strange idols, we would be mighty on the earth and not scattered and lost."

 

[Radrook]

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Actually, Nimrod was one of the great men of history, though so little is written about him. He was one of the first statesmen to successfully create a sort of European Union; and it was such a solid alliance that only divine intervention could bring it down.

How was it a European Union when the dispersion resulting in the spread of mankind to diverse localities such as Africa, East Asia and Europe had not happened yet and when it did it was after the union had been destroyed by the confusion of languages? The descendants of Japheth-which are identified as the first settlers of Europe, are described as only arriving there after the confusion of languages took place my friend.

 

[WebersHome]

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How was it a European Union

It wasn't a European Union. It was "a sort of" European Union; i.e. something like a European Union; viz: similar to a European Union.

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