Introduction
Nimrod is a son of Cush, described in Genesis 10:8-9 as "the first on earth to become a mighty warrior" and "a mighty hunter before the Lord", whose kingdom is said to have begun with Babel, Erech, Akkad and Calneh in the land of Shinar, later extending into Assyria.
Family
- Father: Cush
A mighty warrior and kingdom builder
Genesis gives Nimrod unusually extensive individual attention compared to the largely bare genealogical lists surrounding him in the Table of Nations, describing his reputation as a hunter (a phrase, "like Nimrod a mighty hunter", that became proverbial) and naming the specific cities of his kingdom in Mesopotamia.
Later tradition and Babel
Though Genesis 11's account of the Tower of Babel does not name Nimrod directly, later Jewish and Christian tradition, beginning already in some Second Temple period Jewish sources, closely associated Nimrod with the building of the tower and with defiance of God, a connection that has become a standard part of popular retellings even though it is an interpretive tradition rather than something Genesis states explicitly.