NIMROD (ntm'rOcl), (Heb. nim-rode', Sept. Nel3p63,nee-brode'), a son of Cush, the eldest son of Ham (Gen. x:8-io).
Five sons of Cush are enumerated in verse 7 in the tnore usual manner of this chapter; but a change of phrase introduces Nimrod.
(1) Personal Name. This difference may in dicate that while, in relation to the other five, the names have a national and geographical reference, this appellation is exclusively personal. It denotes intensively, the extremely zmpious rebel. Hence we conceive that it was not his original proper name, but was affixed to him afterwards, perhaps even after his death, as a characteristic appellative.
No other persons connected with this work must be considered as answerable for the opinion which the writer of this article thinks to rest upon prob able grounds, that the earlier part of the book of Genesis consists of several independent and com plete compositions, of the highest antiquity and authority, marked by some difference of style, and having clear indications of commencement in each instance. If this supposition be admitted, a reason presents itself for the citation of a proverbial phrase in ch. x:o. The single instance of minute circumstantiality, in so brief a relation, seems to imply that the writer lived near the age of Nimrod, while his history was still a matter of tra ditional notoriety, and the comparison of any hero with him was a familiar form of speech. It is also supposed that those, not fragments, hut com plete, though short and separate compositions (of which eight or more are hypothetically enumerated in J. Pye Smith's Scripture and Geology. p. 2o2), were, under divine authority, prefixed by Moses to his own history. Their series has a continuity generally, but not rigorously exact. If wc place ourselves in such a point of time. suppose the age succeeding Nimrod, which might be the third cen tury after the Deluge, we may see how naturally the origination of a common phrase would rise in the writer's mind; and that a motive of usefulness would be suggested with it. But both these ideas involve that of nearness to the time; a period in which the country traditions were yet fresh, and an elucidation of them would be acceptable and consonant to general feeling. The following is a close translation of the passage in which Nimrod is mentioned: 'And Cush begat Nimrod: he be gan [opened a course of action, led the way] to be a hero in the earth [or in the land]: he was a hero at the chase in the presence of Jehovah; on which account the saying is, Like Nimrod, the hero of the chase, in the presence of Jehovah. And the chief [city] of his dominion was Babel; and [he founded] Ezek and Akkad, and Kalneh, in the land of Shinar.' ' (2) Strength and Courage. Interpreters, with scarcely an exception, from the Septuagint and the Targums down to our own times, under stand the whole case thus: that Nimrod was a man of vast bodily strength, and eminent for cour age and skill in the arts of hunting down and cap turing or killing the dangerous animals, which probably were both very numerous, and frequently of enormous size; that, by these recommendations, he made himself the favorite of bold and enter prising young men, who readily joined his hunting expeditions; that hence he took encouragement the same reason that so many places there are named after him. Thus we have the Birs Nim
roud, the ancient Borsippa, near the ruins of Babylon, Tel Nimroud, near Bag'hdad, the dam Suhr el-Nimroud, across the Tigris near Mosul, and the mound of Nimroud, the ancient Calah. To all appearance, he was regarded in later times in his native country as a great builder also. He seems to have been looked upon by the Babylo nians as the builder of Babylon, and the bilingual Creation story apparently attributes to him the completion of the t-sagila,the great temple tower in that city, which was certainly of the type of the Tower of Babel, even if it were not that erec tion itself. This may account for the connection of Nimrod with the catastrophe of the confusion of tongues, ascribed to him in the East both in comparatively ancient and in more recent times." NIDISHI(nim-shi),(Heb.l.V,nim-shee', saved), the grandfather of Jehu (2 Kings ix:2, 14, 2o); com monly called "father" (i Kings xixa6; 2 Chron. xxii:7). B. C. about 95o to break the patriarchial union of venerable and peaceful subordination to set himself up a-, a mil itary chieftain, assailing and subduing men, train ing his adherents into formidable troops, by their aid subduing the inhabitants of Shinar and its neighboring districts; and that, for consolidating and retaining his power, now become a despotism, he employed his subjects in building forts, which became towns and cities, that which was after wards called Babel being the principal.
(3) Fables and Legends. As a great part of the ancient mythology and idolatry arose from the histories of chiefs and sages, decorated with alle gorical fables, it is by no means improbable that the life and actions of Nimrod gave occasion to stories of this kind. Hence. some have supposed him to have been sigmified by the Indian Bacchus, deriving that name from Bar-Chus, 'son of Cush :' and, it is probable, by the Persian giant Gibber (answering- to the Hebrew Gibbor, 'mighty man,' 'hero,' in Gen. x :8, 9); and by the Greek Orion, whose fame as a 'mighty hunter' is celebrated by Homer, in the Odyssey, xi :57x-4. The Persian and the Grecian fables are both represented by the well-known and magnificent constellation.
J. P. S.
Prof. T. G. Pinches, Hastings' Bib. Diet., says: "The legends that have been preserved concerning Nimrod would seem to show that his fame in the country of his exploits rests more upon what was known of him there than upon the somewhat meager account in Genesis, and it is probably for