NIMROD, the sixth son of Cush, and to all appearance much younger than any of his brothers, since Moses mentions the sons of Raamah, his fourth brother, before he speaks of him. What the sacred historian says of him is short; and yet he says more than of any other of the posterity of Noah, till he comes to Abraham. He tells us that “Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth ;” that he was “a mighty hunter before the Lord,” even to a proverb; and that “the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calnch, in the land of Shinar.”

From this account Nimrod is supposed to have been a man of extraordinary strength and valour. Some represent him as a giant; all consider him as a great warrior. It is generally thought that by the words “a mighty hunter,” is to be understood that he was a great tyrant; but some of the rabbin interpret these words favourably, thinking that Nimrod was qualified by peculiar dexterity and strength for the chase, and that he offered to God the game which he caught; and several of the moderns are also of opinion that this passage is not to be understood of his tyrannical oppressions, or his hunting of men, but only of beasts. It must be owned that the phrase “before the Lord” may be taken in a favourable sense, and as a commendation of his good qualities; but the generality of expositors and commentators understand it otherwise.

Hunting must have been one of the most useful employments in the times immediately after the dispersion, when all countries were overrun with wild beasts, of which it was necessary that they should be cleared, to render them habitable; and therefore nothing seemed more proper to procure a man esteem and honour in those ages than his being an expert hunter. By that exercise, we are told, the ancient Persians qualified their kings for war and government; and hunting is still, in many countries, considered as part of a royal education.

There is nothing in the short history of Nimrod that carries the least air of reproach, excepting his name, which signifies a rebel; and that is the circumstance wduch seems to have occasioned the injurious opinions which have been entertained respecting him in all ages. Commentators, being in general prepossessed in favour of the opinion that the curse of Noah fell upon the posterity of Ham, and finding this prince stigmatised by such a name, have interpreted every passage relating to him to his disadvantage[7:16:230]. They represent him as a rebel against God, in persuading the descendants of Noah to disobey the divine command to disperse, and in setting them on to build the tower of Babel, with an impious design of scaling heaven. They brand him as an ambitious usurper and an insolent oppressor, and make him the author of the adoration of fire and idolatrous worship, as well as the first persecutor on the score of religion. On the other hand, some account him a virtuous prince, who, far from advising the building of Babel, left the country, and went into Assyria, because he would not give his consent to that extravagant project.

Nimrod is generally thought to have been the first king after the Deluge, though some authors, supposing a plantation or dispersion prior to that of Babel, have thought that there were kings in several countries before his time. Mizraim is conceived, by many who contend for the antiquity of the Egyptian monarchy, to have begun his reign much earlier than Nimrod; and others, from the uniformity of the languages which were spoken in Assyria, Babylonia, Syria, and Canaan, affirm that those countries must have been peopled before the confusion of tongues.

The four cities which Moses gave to Nimrod constituted a large kingdom in those early times, when few kings had more than one; only it must be observed, that possessions might at first have been large, and afterwards divided into several parcels; and Nimrod being the leader of a nation, we may suppose that his subjects were settled within those limits. Whether he became possessed of those cities by conquest or otherwise, does not appear. It is most probable he did not build Babel, all the posterity of Noah seeming to have been equally concerned in that affair; nor does it appear that he built the other three cities, although the founding of them, and many more, besides other works, are attributed to him by some authors. It may also seem a little strange that Nimrod should have been preferred to the regal dignity, and enjoyed the most cultivated part of the earth then known, rather than any other of the elder chiefs or heads of nations, even of the branch of Ham. Perhaps it was conferred on him for his dexterity in hunting, or it may be that he did not assume the title of king till after the death of his father Cush, who might have been settled there before him, and left him the sovereignty; but we incline to think that he seized Shinarfrom the descendants of Shem, driving out Ashur, who went from thence and founded Nineveh, and other cities in Assyria.

The Scripture does not inform us when Nimrod began his reign. Some date it before the dispersion; but such a conjecture does not seem to suit with the Mosaical history; for before the dispersion we read of no city but Babel, nor could there well be more whilst all mankind were yet in a body together. But when Nimrod assumed the regal title there seems to have been other cities, and this shows that he must have done so a considerable time after the dispersion. The learned writers of the Universal History place the beginning of his reign thirty years after that event, and in all likelihood it should be placed rather later than earlier.

Authors have taken a great deal of trouble to find Nimrod in profane history. Some have imagined him to be the same with Belus, the founder of the Babylonian empire; and others take him to be Ninus, the first Assyrian monarch. Some believe him to have been Evechous, the first Chaldaean king after the Deluge; and others perceive a great resemblance between him and Bacchus, both in actions and in name. Some of the Mahommedan writers suppose Nimrod to have been identical with Zohak, a Persian king of the first dynasty; whilst others contend for his being Kay Kaus, the second king of the second race; and some of the Jews say that he is the same with Amraphel, the king of Shinar, mentioned by Moses. But there is no certainty in these conjectures, nor have we any knowledge of his immediate successors.

The Scripture mentions nothing respecting the death of Nimrod. Some of the rabbin pretend that he was slain by Esau, whom they make his contemporary. There is a tradition that he was killed by the fall of the tower of Babel, when that structure was overthrown by tempestuous winds. But others say, that when he led an army against Abraham, God sent a squadron of gnats, which destroyed most of them, and particularly Nimrod, whose brain was pierced by one of those insects.