The Chaldean account of Genesis

by George Smith

The opening words of the first tablet are preserved, and form as usual the title of the series, but the expressions used are obscure from want of any context to explain them. There are two principal or key-words, naqbi and kugar; the first of which means “a channel,” and is more particularly applied to the canals with which Babylonia was intersected and watered, while the second is the compound ideograph which literally signifies “minister” or “servant of work.” It was the special title of Izdubar, who, like his Greek double Herakles, was celebrated for ‘the twelve labours’ he successfully undertook. The title had no doubt been originally given to the fire-god, in whom primitive man sees his most useful servant and workman. The first line of the Epic would consequently have run: “The canals, the toiling hero, the god Izdubar, had seen.” Elsewhere, however, the title of Izdubar is written Zicar, that is, “the male” or “hero.”

After the heading and opening line there is a considerable blank in the story, two columns of writing being entirely lost. It is probable that this part contained the account of the parentage and previous history of Izdubar, forming the introduction to the story. In the subsequent portions of the history there is very little information to supply the loss of this part of the inscription; but it appears that the mother of Izdubar was named Dannat, which signifies “the powerful lady.” His father is not named in any of our present fragments, but he is referred to in the third tablet. He was no doubt a deity, possibly the Sun-god, who is supposed to interfere very much in his behalf. When Izdubar, the old god of fire, after first becoming a form of the solar deity, was finally personified and regarded as a mighty leader, strong in war and hunting, he was turned into a giant, one of the mythical monarchs who had ruled in Babylonia in long-past days, and had subdued the many petty kingdoms into which the valley of the Euphrates was then divided.

The centre of the empire of Izdubar is laid in the region of Shinar, or Sumir, Erech “the lofty” being the chief seat of his power, and thus agrees with the site of the kingdom of Nimrod, according to Genesis x. 8, 9, 10, where we read: “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. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” We cannot overlook the fact that the character of Izdubar as hunter, leader, and king, corresponds with that of Nimrod. Cush, the father of Nimrod, may be identified with Cusu, Cusi or Cus, the Accadian deity of sunset and night. The word in Accadian signified “rest” and “darkness,” and is translated by the Assyrian nakhu “to rest,” and nukhu or nukh “rest.” This latter word is identical with the Biblical Noah. It is very possible, therefore, that Cush, the father of Nimrod, has nothing to do with Cush or Ethiopia, the son of Ham, the two being set side by side in Genesis merely on account of the similarity of their names. In this case all the ethnological difficulties occasioned by the belief that the Accadians of Babylonia were Cushites, and connected with Egypt or Ethiopia, will be avoided. It is curious to find the Christian writers identifying Nimrod with Evechous, the first king of Babylon, according to Berosus, after the flood.

The next passage in Genesis after the one describing Nimrod’s dominion may also refer to Nimrod, if we read with the margin, “Out of that land he went forth to Assyria,” instead of “Out of that land went forth Assur.” These verses will then read (Genesis x. 11, 12): “Out of that land he went forth to Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the suburbs of the city, and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.” It must be remembered, however, that Assur was regarded by the Assyrians as their supreme god and eponymous founder, and that in Micah v. 6, “the land of Assur” and “the land of Nimrod” seem to be contrasted with one another. But it is possible to consider the two expressions in the latter passage to be both applied to the same country.

After the date of the later books of the Old Testament we know nothing of Nimrod for some time; it is probable that he was fully mentioned by Berosus in his history, but his account of the giant hunter has been lost. The reason of this appears to be, that a belief had grown up among early Christian writers that the Biblical Nimrod was the first king of Babylonia after the Flood, and looking at the list of Berosus they found that after the Flood according to him Evechous first reigned in Babylonia, and at once assumed that the Evechous of Berosus was the Nimrod of the Bible; but as Evechous has given to him the extravagant reign of four ners or 2,400 years, and his son and successor, Chomasbelus, four ners and five sosses, or 2,700 years, this identification gives little hope of our finding an historical Nimrod.

It is possible that this identification of Nimrod with Evechous, made by the early chronologists, has caused them to overlook his name and true epoch in the list of Berosus, and has thus lost to us his position in the series of Babylonian sovereigns.

Belonging to the first centuries of the Christian era are the works of various Jewish and Christian writers, who have made us familiar with a number of later traditions concerning Nimrod. Josephus declares that he was a prime mover in building the Tower of Babel, an enemy of God, and that he reigned at Babylon during the dispersion. Later writers make him a contemporary with Abraham, the inventor of idol worship, and a furious worshipper of fire. At the city of Orfa, in Syria, he is said to have cast Abraham into a burning fiery furnace because he would not bow down to his idols. These legends have been taken up by the Arabs, and although his history has been lost and replaced by absurd and worthless stories, Nimrod still remains the most prominent name in the traditions of the country; everything good or evil is attributed to him, and the most important ruins are even now called after his name. From the time of the early Christian writers down to to-day, men have been busy framing systems of general chronology, and since Nimrod was always known as a famous sovereign it was necessary to find a definite place for him in each chronological scheme. Africanus and Eusebius held that he was the Evechous of Berosus, and reigned first after the Flood. Moses of Khorene identified him with Bel, the great god of Babylon; and he is said to have extended his dominions to the foot of the Armenian mountains, falling in battle there when attempting to enforce his authority over Haic, king of Armenia. Other writers identified Nimrod with Ninus, the mythical founder of the city of Nineveh. These remained the principal identifications before modern research took up the matter; but so wide a door was open to conjecture, that one writer actually identified Nimrod with the Alorus of Berosus, the first king of Babylonia before the Flood.

One of the most curious theories about Nimrod, suggested in modern times, was grounded on the “Book of Nabatean Agriculture.” This work is a comparatively modern forgery, pretending to be a literary production of the early Chaldean period. In this work Nimrod heads a list of Babylonian kings called Canaanite, and a writer in the “Journal of Sacred Literature” has argued with considerable force in favour of these Canaanites being the Arabs of Berosus, who reigned about B.C. 1550 to 1300. The southern half of Arabia is known as Cush in the Old Testament like the opposite coast of Africa, and, as Nimrod is called a Cushite in Genesis, there was a great temptation to identify him with the leader of the Arab dynasty. This idea, however, gained little favour, and has not been held by any section of inquirers as fixing the position of Nimrod. The discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions threw a new light on the subject of Babylonian history, and soon after the decipherment of the inscriptions attention was directed to the question of the identity and age of Nimrod. Sir Henry Rawlinson, the father of Assyrian discovery, first seriously attempted to fix the name of Nimrod in the cuneiform inscriptions, and he endeavoured to find the name in that of the second god of the great Chaldean triad. (See Rawlinson’s “Ancient Monarchies,” vol. i. p. 117.) The names of this deity are really Enu, Elum, and Bel, and he was evidently worshipped at the dawn of Babylonian history, and is in fact represented as one of the creators of the world; time, moreover, has shown that the cuneiform characters on which the identification was grounded do not bear the phonetic values then supposed.

Sir Henry Rawlinson also suggested (“Ancient Monarchies,” p. 136) that the god Nergal was a deification of Nimrod. Nergal, however, which means literally “the illuminator of Hades,” was a god of the lower world, and even if Nimrod was deified under the name of Nergal this does not explain his position or epoch.

Canon Rawlinson, brother of Sir Henry, in the first volume of his “Ancient Monarchies,” p. 153, and following, makes some judicious remarks on the chronological position of Nimrod, and suggests that he may have reigned a century or two before B.C. 2286; he asserts the historical character of his reign, and supposes him to have founded the Babylonian monarchy, but does not himself identify him with any king known from the inscriptions. At the time when this was written (1871), the conclusions of Canon Rawlinson were the most satisfactory that had been advanced since the discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions. Since this time, however, some new theories have been started, with the idea of identifying Nimrod; one of these, brought forward by Professor Oppert, makes the word a geographical term, but such an explanation is evidently quite insufficient to account for the traditions attached to the name.