Study – Grow – Know

Nimrod, the Hunter of Men

January 14, 2013 at 10:07 AM Leave a comment

I’ve been doing some research on the very fascinating and diabolical character of the biblical Nimrod and what I’ve been learning has been amazing, to say the least.  Nimrod, as you are probably aware, is one of the individuals mentioned in Genesis 10.  He was listed as a “mighty hunter before the Lord,” (Genesis 10:9) and will be forever connected with that evil city, Babylon.  That phrase “mighty hunger” is interesting, to say the least.  In Alexander Hislop’s book The Two Babylons, he notes that this meant that Nimrod literally gathered men to himself and away from the Living God.  He hunted men, not to kill them (although he did that as well), but to rule over them.

In fact, in Hislop’s book, he takes great pains to show the type of character that Nimrod truly was and how every major civilization after the Tower of Babel had its own story about Nimrod.  Whether he was referred to in these other civilizations and cultures as Osirus, Nin, Ninus, Bel, Bacchus, or some other named individual, Hislop shows how all of these individuals – though known by various names – all trace their roots directly back to the highly unique and charismatic character of Nimrod.

Why is Nimrod so important to history?  It is because Nimrod was essentially the very first tyrant, or world ruler and from him, all others issue.  Interestingly enough though, Nimrod was also greatly beloved (or at least admired) by the people during his time and well after because of his exploits and what he accomplished for the people he ruled.  This fact forces us to ask the question why?

Consider the time right after the Flood.  Noah was alive, his sons were alive, along with their wives and in fact, it is believed that Shem lived for roughly 700 years or so after the Flood.  These people had lived through the great global Flood that God poured out onto the earth.  They had seen the world before the Flood and had become settlers of the “new” world after the Flood.  As these people lived, everyone who was born into this “new” world would be reminded not only of God’s judgment, but His mercy; judgment in wiping out everyone who lived in constant rebellion before Him and mercy in saving Noah, his sons, and their wives because they alone had been considered “righteous,” or perfect in their generations (cf. Genesis 6:8-9).

Now imagine living on the earth just after the Flood.  There were few people of course, because the earth needed to be replenished.  The only people you knew were Noah and his sons and anyone born into the world at that time came from those people.  No matter who you spoke with, you would be reminded of the time that God’s wrath had been poured out onto the world.  You learned and were reminded of why His wrath was necessary and the resultant death of millions of people.  Now, you were part of a small band of people that were given the instructions to be fruitful and multiply; to fill the earth with human population again; to essentially start over.  You could not escape the reality that God lived and ruled over humanity.  But what if that concept did not set well with you?  What did you do then?

Enter Nimrod, who was the son of Cush (cf. Genesis 10:8).  Somehow, Nimrod became this tremendously charismatic figure who began to “hunt” for men; to gather them to himself.  According to Alexander Hislop, though Cush was considered to be the founder of Babylon, the city itself was built under the watchful eye and leadership of his son, Nimrod.  But Nimrod was far more than simply an architect of a city that was designed and built to prove to God that He was no longer needed.  Nimrod was a true visionary and leader who would help the people forget that God even existed by taking their eyes off of Him and onto themselves.  Because of this, Nimrod would be increasingly seen as a great man, a wonderful leader, even a savior to society.

Now, consider our day.  Is it strange when we come across someone who is an atheist or part of an organization that boldly declares there is no god?  Of course not.  Atheists exist and they also have their own organizations, don’t they?

Atheists are often resolute in their belief that there is no god at all.  Many of them I’ve met are extremely arrogant and even haughty when dealing with people of the faith.  They foolishly believe that it is due to our superstitious and antiquated mindsets that we have not moved away from the old-fashioned need to cling to a god; someone who is said to guide our lives and provide rewards or judgment in the afterlife.  The atheist has no need of this type of belief system.  They believe they are free from it all so that their lives are of their own making.

The atheist of today is not that unusual at all.  However, consider the days of Nimrod.  No one was an atheist.  Everyone lived too closely to the end of the time of the global Flood.  It was all too fresh in the memory and even for those who lived a few hundred years after it had come and gone, the whole subject of the global Flood was still very much alive, including the reasons why it had occurred.  To be an atheist then was unheard of because the facts and the overwhelming beliefs of everyone kept atheism well at bay.

So, in order for someone like Nimrod to not only thrive, but to become extremely popular among the population of that day, he must have had something really interesting to offer the people along with a very tantalizing way of offering it.  The groundwork that had been laid that allowed Nimrod to wax popular, had most likely been laid by Cush himself.  It was very likely that Cush “had a pre-eminent share in leading mankind away from the true worship of God.” [1]

This is what Cush passed down to his son, Nimrod, which Nimrod took and further exploited.  If we understand that, generally speaking, people do not want to admit to there being a God in the heavens to which we are beholden, then it becomes reasonable to believe that Nimrod simply gave the people what they truly wanted to have – a way of life without having to acknowledge that God existed at all, or that He existed but He was really not at all like the God Noah and his immediate sons described and worshiped.  This tends to remind us of Psalm 2, where the leaders of the nations rage and endeavor to do whatever they can to throw off the “fetters” that keep them bound to God.  Those type of people desperately want to be free of anything that even remotely smacks of being chained to God.

Imagine how difficult this was  to accomplish in Nimrod’s day!  The Flood was still very fresh in the minds of people.  Everywhere they looked, they saw how the earth had been affected by the fountains of the deep breaking up and the geography of the land having gone through major changes.  Whether they completely understood this or not, they would have people like Noah and his sons as constant reminders of what God had been forced to do because of the hardness of people’s hearts and the constant wickedness that was evidenced throughout the earth for years before and leading up to the Flood.

It is also very possible that one particular son of Noah – Shem – was the great persuader in reminding people that God existed and had destroyed the earth in judgment.  It may well have been Shem who constantly spoke about God’s hatred of sin and rebellion and His love for His Creation.  Shem may have been the one standard by which all men were constantly reminded of God’s invisible presence.  Imagine how much this would grate on the nerves of people who did not wish to retain the knowledge of God in their hearts. So, Nimrod gave the people something that allowed them to remember a type of god, but in a way that also allowed them to move away from Him while still believing that they were living in obedience to Him.  Again, today, this is not so difficult to achieve.  Back then, Nimrod must have completely understood how to manipulate people and was an artist at it; the world’s first human con artist (second only to his spiritual “father,” Satan).

In essence, Nimrod introduced the people to a belief system that allowed them to continue to live the way they wanted to live without having to change to meet what were considered to be, God’s standards and expectations.  Hislop states, “According to the system which Nimrod was the grand instrument in introducing, men were led to believe that a real spiritual change of heart was unnecessary, and that so far as change was needful, they could be regenerated by mere external means. 

“Looking at the subject in the light of Bacchanalian orgies…commemorated the history of Nimrod, it is evident that he led mankind to seek their chief good in sensual enjoyment, and showed them how they might enjoy the pleasures of sin, without any fear of the wrath of a holy God.  In his various expeditions he was always accompanied by troops of women; and by music and song, and games and revelries, and everything that could please the natural heart, he commended himself to the good graces of mankind.” [2; emphasis added]

So rather than try to teach people something they could not embrace and went against absolute truth (that God did not exist), Nimrod provided them with an alternative that catered to their sensuality.  He essentially taught them that while yes, God existed, Noah and others had it wrong about how to worship Him and how to please Him.  In this way, Nimrod became the hero of the masses and after his violent death, actually became deified by his wife (Semiramis, and a host of other names depending upon the unique culture in which the story is told).

Nimrod was exceptionally unique for his day.  He lived very close to this side of the great, global Flood, which served as a constant reminder that God not only existed, but judged sin and rebellion, saving only those who had committed themselves to His purposes.

If you were a person who chafed at that thought, you had little choice, except to grit your teeth and carry on, while hiding and contemplating the hatred and anger you had for this God in your heart.  That is, until Nimrod came around.

Nimrod provided the reason for rejecting Noah’s God; a God of judgment and wrath.  Instead, he taught people how to live on this earth while believing in God, but a God who was far different from the God of Noah.  Nimrod taught people how to live without guilt, while enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season.  In truth, Nimrod became the first person who itched the ears of those who listened to him.  There has been a long line of individuals like Nimrod since then and the line will ultimately culminate with the Antichrist.

Think about how incredibly difficult this was for Nimrod to do in his day and age, yet he apparently had the power, the ability, and the necessary art of persuasion that brought about the desired result in those he “hunted.”  Is it any wonder then he became a hunter of men?  He was loved!  Adored!  People saw Nimrod as their Savior and followed him as such.  After his death, his deification was the natural result and continuation of having given the earthly population something that allowed them to ignore God, while worshiping their own created image of God.  They were religious.  They worshiped.  They believed in God.  It was, unfortunately, not the God of Noah.  It was a god of their own making; an idolatrous god who captured their hearts and minds.

Because of Nimrod, how much easier is it for charlatans of today to teach people that the God of wrath and judgment is a God that simply does not exist?  We are thousands of years removed from the Flood. Most today laugh at the idea that there was a global flood that destroyed every creeping thing on the earth.  It’s too preposterous to believe.  Our intellectualism should cause us to rise above such nonsense.

Because of all the stories and “myths” of the main ancient cultures, the legend of Noah exists in some form.  Because of this, people cast it off as simply being a form of superstitious lore, passed down from generation to generation, culture to culture, as a cute story created by neanderthals who attempted to explain – to the best of their knowledge and understanding – how things began.  It was the best they could do, but was certainly not scientific.  While some of the ingredients changed over time, the main plot remained constant.  Yet, in the end, it’s nothing more than a quaint story thought up in the minds of people who are believed to have been far less intelligent than we are today.

I firmly believe however, that the truth of the matter is that as we become further and further removed from the time of Noah and the Flood, people have become less intelligent and far more darkened in their hearts.  In spite of the advances of technology (which in many ways, may be far superior to what the ancients might have had), the hearts and understanding of mankind have become far more darkened and futile.  It is almost as if man is devolving into something that is further and further away from what God intended us to be as the pinnacle of His Creation.

We think we are highly intelligent.  We believe ourselves to be advanced and on the brink of abundantly important discoveries.  Yet, in truth, our hearts are darker now than during the time just after the Flood.  We like to think of our ancestors as having lived in caves, dragging their knuckles on the ground, and grunting to communicate.  I believe that, compared to them, we are the ones who grunt, comparatively speaking.

They were closer to the realities of God.  The light of His Creation was still fresh in their minds.  The words of faith spoken by Noah and his sons were all too real.  We have become so far removed from our original moorings that we barely think of God at all and when we do, we prefer to think of Him on our terms, not His.  While His Creation constantly points to Him as the Creator, most ignore it, fully unwilling and therefore, unable to see it.

Paul is very clear about the mess we have gotten ourselves into and he clearly points this out to us in the first chapter of Romans.  “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures,” (Romans 1:18-23).

In Nimrod’s day, convincing people the opposite of what they had learned through Noah and his sons was not an easy task.  Yet, this is what Nimrod accomplished and he was not only highly favored by the people, but was ultimately deified because of it.  God allowed the people to reject Him then.  When given the opportunity to believe Nimrod’s lie, God sat back and gave the people what they wanted and they embraced Nimrod, while rejecting the truth.  Such was the power of Nimrod, as he was likely indwelt by the father of lies, Satan himself.

Today, it is much easier to reject God, for those who wish to do that.  We are so far removed from Him and His miraculous power that it is too often not all that difficult for many to believe the person who comes along filling their minds with tripe.  People today love to have their ears tickled with lies that sound like truth.  It is because those lies are somehow tied to the sensual portion of our natures and that is what makes those lies succeed.  It worked in the Garden of Eden.  It worked in Nimrod’s world and it continues to work today.

It is correct we view Nimrod as the first in a long line of typical antichrists.  Nimrod presented the people with lies and they followed him, in spite of all they knew about God from firsthand accounts of Noah and his sons.  Nimrod offered the people an alternative and from him the mystery of Babylon was born.

Consider that Nimrod was the son of Cush.  Cush was a grandson of Noah.  We’re talking about an individual that was part of the second generation from Noah that began a worldwide apostasy.

We are quickly approaching a time when the final Antichrist will arrive on the scene and present his lies to humanity.  Those lies – like the lies of his distant predecessor, Nimrod – will be wholly accepted and embraced. We have been seeing what I believe to be the apostasy that Paul spoke of to Timothy occurring for some time now.  People are ready to hear more lies.  In fact, they prefer them over the truth.  The groundwork that was originally set down by Nimrod (and possibly Cush before him) has been building in momentum until we are at the near climax of history when it will be perfect timing for the “man of sin” to waltz out onto the stage of humanity and, like the Pied Piper, lead the people where they wish to go through one lie after another.

The final Antichrist will simply be building and capitalizing on the energy, activity, and lies that began with the very first type of Antichrist, Nimrod.

[1] Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 25

[2] Ibid, p. 55

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