Nimrod נמרוד
the first conquering king, builder of the Tower of Babel
The Torah is brief and dark about him: "he began to be a mighty one on the earth… a mighty hunter before the Lord", and "the beginning of his kingdom was Bavel"—Scripture's first kingdom in that sense.
The sages read "before the Lord" as defiance: he hunted people rather than beasts, trapping them with words. His name is derived from the root "to rebel": he led the world in rebellion. Midrash makes him the mind behind the tower, a building meant to prove humanity could do without Heaven.
The best-known story of Avraham's youth belongs to him: Nimrod casts the young Avram into a furnace at Ur Kasdim for refusing idolatry, and he emerges unharmed. Many commentators identify Nimrod with Amraphel, king of Shinar, in the war of the kings.
Midrash says he was killed by Esav, who took his miraculous garments—by one count on the day Avraham died.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 10:8–12 — the first kingdom: Bavel, Erech, Akkad and Calneh
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 23, 37, 38 — “he hunted men with his mouth”; the furnace for Avraham
- Eruvin 53a — Amraphel is Nimrod
- Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer 24 — Adam’s garments and the power over the beasts
Basis: tradition.