
Gen. 10:8-9 “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.”
Nimrod means ‘rebel’ or ‘rebellion.’ He was the one who built both Babel and Nineveh! Babel became the capital of the Babylonian empire and Nineveh became the capital of the Assyrian empire. And, I’m sure you will remember, it was these two empires that came against Israel and took the Jewish people into captivity! The Assyrians led the more wicked northern Kingdom of Israel (10 tribes) into captivity in approximately 740 BC, and later in 586 BC the Babylonian Empire took the southern kingdom of Judah (2 tribes) into captivity.
Ray Stedman states the following interesting info on Nimrod:
“Nimrod evidently gained a great reputation as such a hunter, but he was more than a hunter of wild animals. The Jewish Talmud helps us here, for it says that he was “a hunter of the souls of men.” By the founding of Babylon and Nineveh we have a hint given of the nature of this man. We are told that he was “the first mighty man on earth,” i.e., after the Flood. That phrase, “mighty man,” takes us back to Genesis 6 where there is the mixing of seed between the sons of God and the daughters of men resulting into mighty men. It was Nimrod who introduced a perverted, degraded form of religion into the world. It began at Babylon, spread to Nineveh, and can be traced in history as it subsequently spread throughout the whole of the earth. Thus, in this man Nimrod, we have the seed of idolatry and false religion coming in again after the Flood.”
More Stories
We Died in the Lord
Don’t let Bitterness Grow in You
The Surety for Mankind