Nimrod (נִמְרוֹד)

Hebrew. ‘Rebel’. Name of a descendant of Cush, the son of Cham and great grandson of Noah. In the Table of Nations, he is represented as the founder of the Babylonian Empire, and as a mighty hunter (warrior) before the Lord. The name of Nimrod has not yet been discovered among those found in the cuneiform inscriptions, and the attempts made by Assyriologists to identify him with historical or legendary personages known to us through these sources rest on more or less plausible conjectures. Thus by some scholars he is identified with Gilgamesh, the hero of the Babylonian epic. The latter, whose name appears frequently in the inscriptions, and who is often represented in the act of strangling a lion, is described in the poem as a powerful prince who subdues the monster ox-faced man Eabani and makes him his companion, after which he triumphs over the tyrant Humbaba, and slays a monster sent against him by the deities, Amu and Ishtar. Like the Biblical Nimrod, he reigns over the city of Erech (Arach), but the texts fail to mention the other towns enumerated in Gen. 10:10, namely Babylon, Achad and Chalanne. Less plausibly, he is sometimes also identified with the Kassite king, Nazi-Murutas, or considered to be the same as Marduk, the great Babylonian deity. A great number of Oriental legends grew up around the scarce Biblical data concerning Nimrod. He is credited with having instigated the building of the tower of Babel and of being the author of Babylonian idolatry. Another legend is to the effect that Abraham having refused to worship the statue of Nimrod was cast into a fiery furnace. Also Nemrod.