Nimrod as a Leader

There are many character traits that can be influenced by our childhood. We know it, and as we say in English, “the apple does not fall far from the tree”. In some cases, the impact of negative traits can empower a person to become more compassionate, kind, or productive, however these are exceptions. If anything, we now know that the exceptions are rather proving rules to be correct.

This knowledge is often a reason why we have very clear genealogies in Biblical stories. As we are going through the Tower of Babel story, Nimrod is the person of interest. One of the main reasons is the belief that Nimrod was one of the central characters in the story. As usual, let us start with a clear description in the text itself.

Let us see the clear genealogy of Nimrod and see what the reason was for his rising to power. It is important to note that it is clearly outlined in the text. As we know, after the flood, there was only one family left on the face of the earth – Noah with his wife, with their three sons and their families. Remember sons’ names? Shem, Japheth, and Ham. Although it is very interesting to know the genealogy of all of them, in this case, we are looking just for Nimrod, and what do we see? We see that “the sons of Ham were Kush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan…. Kush was the father of Nimrod”. Something else is becoming very confronting as it lists the sons of Kush, and only afterwards is it written that Kush was the father of Nimrod.

As we know, Torah uses precise language, therefore the difference is noted and discussed way before our time. Our sages tell us that the difference in language shows the different choices made by the descendants of Kush. Let us indulge ourselves in the knowledge of Kush’s lineage. Everyone listed together settled in different places, such as Oman, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Turkey, which are the most common. So why is Nimrod listed separately? It is because in the text itself, right after the description of Nimrod being fathered by Kush, we read “he was a mighty hunter… .his kingdom began with Babylon… in the land of Shin’ar”. After reading together with the “and it came to pass when they traveled from the east, that they found a valley in the land of Shin’ar to settle there …. let us build ourselves a city and a tower”.

Now that we have established the geographical reference, we see that Nimrod became the leader of the project since it was his land. And now we understand the reason behind the rebellious behavior – after all, Nimrod’s uncle Cannaan is cursed to be a slave to Shem and Japhet. While the curse is not directed at his father, Kush, it is important to note that Nimrod’s father, Kush, or his grandfather Ham, did not receive a blessing.

Armed with this knowledge, we can see the psychological reasons behind Nimrod’s uncertainty about his rights to the land. Now we see why the description of the strong hunter is used, rather than a king. Our sages point out a rather important fact that the very name Nimrod means rebellion. This gives us another view of his nature.

In this situation, Nimrod could have been appreciative of the gift of the Almighty and realised that all power comes only from the Divine. However, Nimrod has chosen the opposite approach and attributed his power to his strength and cunning nature. We can see it in words like “let us build the tower”.

As for the people surrounding Nimrod, they were worshiping different attributes of nature like the sun, rain, wind, and so on, without the slightest understanding of where the power is coming from. Only in that environment could the idea of challenging the Almighty could be accepted. Now the stage is set for the whole project of building the Tower of Babel to be implemented. Let us look into the process of building as well as the consequences of it in our next blog.