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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Genesis 10:8 - 10:8
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Nimrod - Of this person little is known, as he is not mentioned except here and in 1Ch 1:10, which is evidently a copy of the text in Genesis. He is called a mighty hunter before the Lord; and from Gen 10:10, we learn that he founded a kingdom which included the cities Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Though the words are not definite, it is very likely he was a very bad man. His name Nimrod comes from מרד, marad, he rebelled; and the Targum, on 1Ch 1:10, says: Nimrod began to be a mighty man in sin, a murderer of innocent men, and a rebel before the Lord. The Jerusalem Targum says: “He was mighty in hunting (or in prey) and in sin before God, for he was a hunter of the children of men in their languages; and he said unto them, Depart from the religion of Shem, and cleave to the institutes of Nimrod.” The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel says: “From the foundation of the world none was ever found like Nimrod, powerful in hunting, and in rebellions against the Lord.” The Syriac calls him a warlike giant. The word ציד tsayid, which we render hunter, signifies prey; and is applied in the Scriptures to the hunting of men by persecution, oppression, and tyranny. Hence it is likely that Nimrod, having acquired power, used it in tyranny and oppression; and by rapine and violence founded that domination which was the first distinguished by the name of a kingdom on the face of the earth. How many kingdoms have been founded in the same way, in various ages and nations from that time to the present! From the Nimrods of the earth, God deliver the world!
Mr. Bryant, in his Mythology, considers Nimrod as the principal instrument of the idolatry that afterwards prevailed in the family of Cush, and treats him as an arch rebel and apostate. Mr. Richardson, who was the determined foe of Mr. Bryant’s whole system, asks, Dissertation, p. 405, “Where is the authority for these aspersions? They are nowhere to be discovered in the originals, in the versions, nor in the paraphrases of the sacred writings.” If they are not to be found either in versions or paraphrases of the sacred writings, the above quotations are all false.