Babylon The Great Has Fallen God's Kingdom Rules (1963)
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''He has executed judgment upon the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication,. . . . Halleluiah* because Jehovah our God, the Almighty, has begun to rule as king.'' —Revelation 19:2, 6, NW, margin of 1950 edition,
COPYFLIGirr., 1963 by Watch Tower Bielb &. Tract Society of Pe^msyl-vakta
First Edition
2,250.000 COPIES
Publishers
Watciitoweb Bible and Tract Society of New York4 InC.
Ils" TERNAT1ON AL B1ELE STUDENTS AfitOClATlDhT Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Mudu in ill© TTnit«.'3 Si.jlIi:?; of America.
DEDICAT
To God. tlu3 Almighty, Who Co, uses the Full of
JBcihyloix the Gceut
I it the Literncil Interest of
True Religion
Abbreviations ar trana!at।oiib of His Word quoted or cited herein:
— American Standard Version Bibir. by the American
(’n mm it tee of Rcv'Lsloin. of 1901
— The Complete Bible: An American Translation, by J- M. P. Smith and E. J. <Jood speed, of 10CO
— Authorized or King James Version Bible, of 1611
— Roman Catholic Emclish translation of the Latin Vuleate made at Doubv and Rhtizr.s, as of 1610
— The Holy Bible, translated. by MonaJirnor it. A. Knox. as of 1949
— Thr Twcnty-ToUT iSOOk-s Of th<‘ Hflh‘ Seri hv Rabbi
Isaac Leescr, as of 1853
— The Greek Septuaglnt translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, as published by S. Bugsler and Sons Limited. London
— A New Tm mdatlon of the Blhlo, bv Dr. Janies Moffatt-. as of 1922 ‘
Any Bible quotation or citation not followed by any specific abbreviation is from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (iVTV). the revised edition of 1961- Other translations of the Bible may he quoted or cited, but with, the name of the tr.;tnsl:ti ion not abbreviated.
Abbreviations of reference woricjs quoted or cited herein:
Aw — The Encyclopedia Americana, edition of 1929
Am* — The Encyclopedia Americans., edition of 1946
Z?rl — The Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition
fir8 — The Encyclopaedia Britannica, edition, of 1946
— The Int*-rnatlonal Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edition of 1955
HCVIAS! — Cyclopaedia of Tisblieal, Thf.nlri^i^il and Hi-elcsiasstical Literal urc. by John M‘Cl intock and James Strann;. as of 1891
TB — The Two isabylnnx. by Dr. Alexander Hislop, ILondon edition Of 1926
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1 Faced with Solving a Mystery ........
2 Babylon Arises ...............
3 The Religion of Babylon . . . , ......
4 A Family’ Gets Out of Chaldea ........
5 Liberating and Organizing a New Nation . • • • 6 A Small-Scale Kingdom of God on Earth Begins .
7 Israel Feels Assyria's Aggressions......
8 Zion Clashes with Babylon .........
9 The Desolating of Zion ...........
10 Waiting in Exile for Babylon’s Fall ......
Il Previews of Babylon’s Fall...... . . .
12 The Conqueror Is Appointed in Advance . . . .
13 The Fall of Babylon ............
14 Her Fall Vindicates Jehovah’s Prophecy . . . .
15 No Healing for Babylon ..........
16 Down, World Mistress! ...........
17 Up, Zion! . ...............
18 Getting Out of the Midst of Babylon.....
19 Messiah Comes to Zion . .........
20 Coming to Mount Zion, Heavenly Jerusalem . .
21 Babylon the Great and Heavenly Zion in Revelation.............
22 From Her Fall TUI the “Wine Press” Is Trodden .
23 Seven Angels with the Last Plagues . . . , „
24 Pouring Out the Seven Last Plagues Begins . . *
25 From the Euphrates to liar Magrdon . . . . .
26 “The Judgment upon the Great Harlot” . . . .
27 Mourning and Gladness over Her Destruction . .
28 The Marriage and Warfare of the Lamb . . . *
29 Messiah's Thousand-Year Reign.......
30 A New Order of a New Heaven and L\:.rth . . .
31 Invitation to Drink “Water of Life” ...... Chart of Dates from Creation to Current Date
(A-D. 1963) of Babylon the Great . . . . .
Subject Index..... . . .
PAGE
. 11
. 106 . 117
. 141 . 170 . 182 . 207 . 227 . 242 . 269
. 305
. 341
. 361 . 401 . 430
. 454 . 506 . 522 . 530 . 557 . 576 . 601
. 616 . 631 . 649 . 663
, 682 . 691
c H A P
T E R
Faced with
Solving
a Mystery
1 HE fall of Babylon the Great means that God’s kingdom is ruling. With such shocking suddenness will Babylon’s fall come that the vast majority of mankind will be surprised and caught in the worldwide consequences of it. For many centuries, however, some righteous men and women have looked forward eagerly, and with prayer, to this event, for it will mean liberation from an oppression that has lasted so long. They have been able to look forward to this great event with unwavering faith because of a Book. From beginning to end this ancient Book of prophecy has interwoven the theme of Babylon into its story. In not very many pages from its opening words this Book tells of the beginning of an ancient Babylon, in still less pages from its closing words it gives a vivid description of the fall and everlasting destruction of Babylon the Great. Thal Book is the sacred Bible, containing the Holy Scriptures. It alone tells of the triumph of God’s kingdom over Babylon the Great of today.
In the year 539 B.C. ancient Babylon bad a historymaking fall. Today the location where that wonder city once dominated the world reveals some impressive ruins that have been uncovered since the year 1899 by a German Oriental Society. What, then, is the other Babylon that survives till now and that must yet fall with a world-shocking crash? Even the sacred Bible says that its name is a mystery, and over the centuries
many men have tried to solve the mystery by identifying this greater Babylon*
Interesting have been the interpretations of the symbol of Babylon, One of the most recent is that which identifies the Babylon that appears in the last book of the Bible, “not as a conquering military power as in the earlier I" Bible] prophets, but as the embodiment of material civilization and luxury, the great harlot, whose charms bewitch all the nations of the earth: the world market whose trade enriches the merchants and the shipowners?’*
The last book of the Bible gives us many clues to help us in identifying this international “harlot,1’ but those clues are prophetic. So we have to turn to the pages of history" and match Bible prophecy with recorded history to identify the foretold Babylon accurately. In that way we can be sure that we are getting God’s interpretation of the Babylonian mystery that he put into his Bible*
Our getting at the solution of the mystery is important for us. Why so ? Because through the pages of the Bible we hear the rousing command for those who desire to be God’s people to get out of Babylon, to flee out of her for the sake of their lives, losing no time. Along with that stern command God mercifully warns us of what it will mean to his people to remain in this Babylon of mystery, in ibis day of his judgment of her.
How. though, can anyone flee out of the midst of Babylon if he does not identify it? How can he break loose from it, now while there is yet time, if he does not know what Babylon stands for? What relationships with Babylon must he break in order 1,.o be free from it and no longer share in any of its responsibility before Ged? Bven if the hour of God’s judgment of Babylon were not near, our concern for our personal welfare
* See 254 of The -Di/juirjiies of Work! //jaforjf, by Christopher Dawson. i>diic*<l by John J. Mulloy; published by Sheed and Ward, New York city.
and our desire to be God’s people and no longer Babylon’s bewitched slaves would did ale our getting out of it. Why? Because it is a doomed organization. If our day proves to be God’s fixed time for judging Babylon and if its fall is to come by surprise, as in a narrow time limit like an “hour/' then there is all the more urgency for us to heed the divine warning and get out with no delay.
It is plain that there is need for us to know with an accuracy that leaves no doubts in our mind. We need to know what the Babylon is from which we must flee with benefit to ourselves. Babylon must be exposed to ust and wc must face the exposure honestly and courageously. Only with the accurate knowledge about Babylon can we know what action to take toward her intelligently and deliberately.
Very evidently a choice is facing us. The choice is between Babylon the Great and God’s kingdom. We will either stay in Babylon to share in Hie disaster of her fall or get out of her and put ourselves under the rule of God’s kingdom. To encourage us in this latter course, we not only need to gel an insight, into what Babylon is but also need to understand what God’s kingdom is. How desirable will it be to live forever under its wonderful rule?
With the sacred Bible at hand, we do not have to leave ourselves in an ignorance that finally spells our destruction. We can enjoy very easily an interesting, exciting search through the pages of that infallible Book, coming down to its final prophecies as given in its last book, in the seventeenth chapter of which, in its fifth verse, we read: "And upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth? ** (Revelation 17:5, New World
Our investigation will uncover to us how, for the benefit of till lovers of tvhat is right, she will be destroyed,
after which we shall have described to us the glories of the long-awaited, much-pi’ayed-for kingdom of God.
According to Bible prophecy, many will mourn over the fall of Babylon. But why should we ourselves stay among those who arc certain to mourn, even to death? We shall gain everlasting happiness if we line up now with those who will rejoice and give glory to God because he has judged the “harlot” and she has fallen, never to rise again. So in the following pages we shall consider together what God has to say in his written Word concerning Babylon the Great and hcr enemy, God’s kingdom.
To the end that we may gain a more satisfying understanding, we shall consider fii'st the worlddominating Babylon of ancient history and the ancient pictorial model of God’s kingdom. To do this, we must turn to the sacred Scriptures that were “written aforetime,” that is, before oui' Common Era, the so-called Christian Era. We arc certain to draw enlightenment and profit from this, because, as the letter to the Romans, chapter fifteen, verse four, tells us: “All the things that were written aforetime were written for our instruction, that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope/Romans 15:4. 2VW.
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A
? Babylon Arises
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/z A
z>ND the beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel?11 Here, in the tenth chapter, tenth verse, of the first book of the Bible, is the very first mention of Babylon, yes, also, the first mention in t lie Bible of a kingdom. (Genesis 10:10,2VK7) Babylon is the same as Babel, for when certain Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, made the first written translation of their sacred Hebrew Scriptures into a foreign language (Greek) more than two thousand years ago, they translated the Hebrew name Bab^Z as Babylon The translator' who produced the Batin VttZyate version also used the word Babylon* “His empire began with Babylon/’ is how the modern English translation by the Roman Catholic Monsignor Ronald A. Knox reads, “His empire at first was Babylon/* is how the Bible translation by the Protestant Dr. James Moffatt reads. Thus Babylon takes its place as the seat of the first kingdom on earth after the F lood, the capital city of the first empire by man. Was this in the interest of all mankind or not? Mankind’s great Creator gives answer in his Book the Bible.
Whose kingdom, though, was it that had its seal of government in Babel or Babylon? Who founded this city? How or why was it founded, and how did it get its name? To these questions no ancient book of human history gives us the true answers but the Bible. This Book both introduces the city to us and then foretells its certain fall as a world influence. The king who first 11
reigned in the original Babylon was a great-grandson of Noah, the builder of the great ark in which he and seven other human souls survived the flood that swept the whole earth four thousand three hundred years ago. The name of this great-grandson of Noah was Nimrod.
Concerning this famous man of ancient days the American Standard Version Bible presents the record in these words: “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, namely, of Shem, Hain, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of . . . Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan. . + . And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before Jehovah: wherefore it is said, Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Jehovah, And the beginning of his kingdom was BabeL and Eiech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Cal ah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (the same is the great city)/’—Genesis 10:1-12, AS.
Even to this day hunters of note are nicknamed Nimrod by persons familiar with Bible history. There has been some discussion of the inward meaning of the saying: “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Jehovah. " In what sense was Nimrod a hunter, and was this with Jehovah’s recognition and approval or in defiance of Jehovah? What is the significance of the words “before Jehovah”?
The Roman Catholic Monsignor Ronald A. Knox gives it a favorable meaning in his translation of The Old Testament, which reads: “Chits was also the father of Nemrod, who was the first great warrior; bold, too, by God's grace,1 at the hunt, whence the proverb arose, By God's grace, a huntsman bold as Nemrod. His empire began with Babylon/1 etc.
In speaking of this difference of understanding, The Encyclopaedia Britannica,, Volume 19 (eleventh edition), page 703, says under Nimrod; “The 'mighty hunter before Yahweh2 has been variously explained as ‘a divinely great hunter’ (Spurrell); ka hunter in defiance of Yahweh’ (Holzinger); ‘a hunter with the help of Yahweh1 or 'of some deity whose name has been replaced by Yahweh' (Gunkel, Genesis, page 82).” The name Yahweh is just another way to pronounce the letters in the name of the One whom the American Standard Version Bible calls Jehovah.
TVre Jetcnsft- Volume 9, edition of 1909,
page 309, says that Nimrod, in the writings of the Jewish rabbis, "is the prototype of a rebellious people, his name being interpreted as lie who made all the people rebellious against God.’ ”
In his work entitled “The Book of Beginnings/' the author, Alexander Marlowe, renders Genesis 10:8-10 as follows: “And Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty tyrant in the land. He w?is a terrible subjugator defiant before the face of Jehovah: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the giant hunter, presumptuous in the place of Jehovah. And the original seats of his empire wrere Babylon, and Erec, and Acad and Kalneh in the land of Shinar/’2
In the expression “before Jehovah” the word before is the translation of the Hebrew preposition Itpknei' Regarding this important preposition the religious Ch/cZopcedia by M'Clintock and Strong, Volume 7, edition of 1894, page 109, says:
The preposition ’JEt5 has often, as [Lexicographer! Gescnius admits, a hostile sense—in front of. for the purpose of opposing (Numbers 16:2; 1 Chronicles 14:8; 2 Chronicles 15:10}; and the Septuagint gives it such a sense in the verse under consideration—evavriov Kvqlov - ''against the Lord.1’ The [Jewish] Targums and [historian] Josephus give the preposition this hostile meaning. The context also inclines us to it. That the mighty hunting was not confined to the chase is apparent from its dose connection with the building of eight cities. . . . What Nimrod did in the chase as a hunter was the earlier token of what he achieved as a conqueror. For hunting and heroism were of old specially and naturally associated, . . . The Assyrian monuments also picture many feats in hunting, and the word is often employed to denote campaigning. . . . The meaning then will be. that Nimrod was the first after the flood to found a kingdom, to unite the fragments of scattered patriarchal rule, and consolidate them under himself as sole head and master; and all this in defiance of Jehovah, for it was the violent intrusion of Harri tic power into a Shemitic territory.
Nimrod descended from Ham, not from Shein.—Genesis 10:6-8.
In harmony with this discernment of matters the New WorJd Translation o/ the Holy Scriptures, edition of 1961* translates Genesis 10:8-10 as follows: "And Cush became father to Nimrod. He made the start in becoming a mighty one in the earth. He displayed himself a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah. That is why there is a saying: ‘Just like Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.’ And the beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel and Erech and Accad and Calrteh, in the land of Shinar.”
HOW *1N OPPOSITION”
It is important that now, at the beginning, we spend some time in finding out what kind of man this first king of Babylon (Babel) was. Then we can prove to ourselves on what foundation Babylon the Great of today rests. What is it that leads us to conclude from the Holy Bible that Nimrod was 4‘in opposition to Je-hov'ib'' in bccojr.jn^’ a “mighty one in the earth” and in displaying himself a “mighty hunter*’ whose name would become part of a proverb?
The Bible does not condemn hunting of wild animals and birds when the hunting is done for the sake of
food and clot hing or for protection. But when the hunting is engaged in for the sake of sport and in the love of mere killing wantonly, then the Bible condemns such hunting. Why? Because the life with which the Creator endowed creatures is tied up with the matter. It was first al ter the great Flood that the Creator made it lawful for us to cat the flesh of animals, birds and fish. That, of course, meant taking the life of these creatures* But in order that we might not be held responsible for their lives, the Creator and Life-giver made a certain rest rid ion at the same time that he made it lawful for us to eat. flesh of animals. He did so immediately after Noah and his three sons and the four wives had come out of the flood-proof ark and had engaged in a sacrifice of clean animals to Jehovah. As calculated today, this was in the year 2369 B.C.E. In Genesis 9:1 -6 we read of it in these words:
“And God went on to bless Noah and his sons and to
To Them: ‘Ik1 !’: .liilr: anil become many and fill the earth. And a fear of you and a terror of you win continue upon every living creature of the earth and upon every flying creature of the heavens, upon everything that goes moving on the ground, and upon all the fishes of the sea. Into your hand they are now given. Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat. And, besides that, your blood of your souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every Jiving creature shall I ask it back; and from the hand of man, from the hand of each one who is his brother, shall I ask back the soul of man. Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God's image he made man.’ ” --AV-u.? World Translation*
VJOLATJMi; THE MANDATE ON BLOOD
In those words God the Creator stated that the blood is necessary to the creature’s life, so much so that the
creature's life is represented by the blood. For that reason if anyone shed the blood of a creature needlessly so that, it died, he would be held to account for its lite before the great Life-giver, God.
God is the One who gives life to creatures. Since the life of creatures therefore belongs to him, neither Noah nor any of his family had the right to take the life of a creature unnecessarily. As the creature’s blood is vital to its existence and as its blood stands for its life in the Creator's sight, neither Noah nor any of his descendants had the right to eat or drink the creature's blood when eating its flesh. Eating blood meant the eater's taking to himself also the creature's soul or life, which belongs to God the Life-giver. That is why God said to Noah and his sons: “Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not cat.” Just as God held life to be sacred because it belonged to him and he had given the creature the right to enjoy it, so he held blood to be sacred.
Well, then, when a creature was killed to be eaten, what was to be done with its blood, if it was contrary to God’s law to eat or feed on blood? The blood was to be drained from the creature’s body after it had been killed for food, and was to be poured out on the ground. God plainly commanded such handling of blood when lie told his prophet Moses to write ciown this law for huntsmen of any nation, Israelite or non-Israelite: “As for any man of the sons of Israel or some alien resident who is residing a.s an alien in your midst who in hunting catches a wild beast or a fowl that may be eaten, he must in that case pour its blood out and cover it with dust. lor the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by (he soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: ‘You must not eat the blood of any sori, of - flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood.
Anyone eating it will be cut off.’ ” (Leviticus 17:13,14) In the year 1512 B.C. the prophet Moses wrote down that divine mandate concerning blood; and this fact proved that S57 years after the Flood God's mandate to Noah and his sons concerning the sacredness of blood was still binding on men. Since we are all descendants of Noah, it is binding on us today.
As a great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was bound to keep that divine mandate governing blood. But did he? His notoriousness as a “mighty hunter" indicates that he did not, but that he pursued hunting as a great sport, for the excitement of it, killing animals thoughtlessly as to their God-given right to life, wantonly, and not io protect people against wild beasts. As to whether he ate their flesh with their blood, in disregard of the divine mandate concerning blood, we cannot be certain, although we may be inclined to think so. But Nimrod’s course bespeaks that he had a disregard for blood and its preciousness in the eyes of Jehovah. This is specially true if his hunting did not coniine itself to wild beasts and birds but included human creatures.
This suggestion is not just our own thought. Concerning Nimrod “as a mighty hunter before the Lord" The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 10, page 741, says: “This last may be taken in the strict sense—hunter of wild beasts, for such we know the Babylonian princes to have been; or in the sense of warrior, the original word gibbor having the meaning ‘hero.* ” With this latter suggestion The. Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 20, edition of 1929, page 350, agrees, saying: “He is styled a ’mighty hunter before the Lord,1 a somewhat vague expression, but evidently referring to battle and conquest as well as to the chased* This agrees with M*Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia, as quoted above (page 13, paragraph 5). Aggressive campaigning on Nimrod’s part is indicated by the Bible record in Genesis 10:11, 12, which says: “Out of that land [of Shi-nar] he went forth into Assyria and set himself to building Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: this is the great city.*’ In harmony with this Bible statement history tells us that
Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was developed from Babylon.
Nimrod was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, and children were born to Ham first after the great Flood. Hence his grandson Nimrod's expedition into the territory of Assyria, which belonged to Asshur son of Shorn, must have occurred a hundred years or more after the Flood. By that time the population of the earth must have grown greatly, in obedience to God’s command to Noah and his sons Shorn, Ham and Japheth: “Be fruitful and become many, make the earth swarm with you and become many in it,” (Genesis 9:1, 7) So there were people for Nimrod to set himself up over as king in the city of Babylon (Babel) in the land of Shinar.,
It was after Nimrod established his kingdom at this city that he made his expedition into Assyria to build Nineveh and other cities. In doing so he was evidently invading the territory of Asshur the son of Shorn, for Assyria fakes its name from Asshur. (Genesis 10:21, 22) How natural it would be for the mighty hunter of wild animals to turn to hunting men, not to take them alive, but to kill them, shedding their blood! Nimrod's pushing into Assyria was aggression. In all probability it was attended by bloodshed, the killing of those whom he and his army dispossessed. For this bloodshed Nimrod’s capital city became responsible. As a seat of empire it was built up with blood. (Habakkuk 2:12) What a pattern this was setting for its counterpart, Babylon the Great, to follow!—Revelation 17:5, 6.
God's mandate to Nimrod’s great-grandfather Noah put a sacred value not only upon the blood of animals 1 hat were killed and eaten but more so upon the blood of man who was made in God’s image, Like the blood of animals and birds, the blood of man also stood for his life. One man could not shed the blood or take the life of another man without having to render an account to the Life-giver, God. That was the law that God set up with Noah and all his descendants after he forbade the eating of blood, saying: “Besides that, your blood of your souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every living creature shall I ask it back; and from the hand of man, from the hand of each one who is his brother, shall I ask back the soul of man. Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God’s image he mademun,”—Genests 9:5,6,
If God required the life of a man from every animal, “every living creature,” th tit killed a man. then he would likewise require the life of a man from the hand of his brother man who killed him or shed the life of his soul, his lifeblood. Why? Because that was murder. God did not wait until he gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai in 1513 B.C. to condemn murder and demand a penalty for it. (Exodus 20:13) God condemned murder right after the Flood, when God gave mankind a new and righteous start in life on this earth. Mankind, now being authorized to kill animals for food but without feeding also on their blood, was not to p<'ss from killing of animals to killing of brother man, in God's image. But Nimrod did this very thing, first hunting animals and then, with pleasure in killing creatures, hunting his brother man.
Cain, the first child of Adam and Eve outside the garden of Eden, was the first to murder his brother man, Abel, before the Flood. Nimrod, as far as the Bible record shov. was the first after the Flood to murder his brother man, either before or after he invaded Assyria. Nimrod did not look upon himself as being his “brother’s guardian.” (Genesis 4:1-9) So for good reason, when telling later about the aggressions of the Assyrian World Power, Micah 5:5, 6 calls the “land of Assyria” the “land of Nimrod/*
How did God the Life-giver finally require the lifeblood of all the creatures, animal and human, that Nimrod killed in violation of God’s mandate concerning the sanctity of blood and murder? The Bible does
not state. One of Nimrod’s brothers, Raamah by name, is mentioned as having sons; however, the Bible lists no children as born, to Nimrod, in spile of his becoming a “mighty one in the earth.” The Bible, as it were, cuts him off, taking no note or any children that he might have had. (Genesis 10:7-12) Mythologies that trace back to Nimrod as the first king of Babylon indicate that he met a violent death at the hand of executioners,*
So, then, in view of his Bible record as an empire builder, can we conscientiously say that Nimrod was a bold huntsman “by God’s grace” or with the help of Gud? Or do the Bible's rules of judgment in cl: er. to tha-Nimrod was a “mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah”? Our further study of Nimrod and his royal city Babylon (Babel) will make the right, answer to the question still plainer.
DEFIANCE OF GOD’S
UNIVERSAL
SOVEREIGNTY
There is much meaning in the simple statement about Nimrod: “And the beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel.” (Genesis 10:10) This is the very first mention of a kingdom in the Holy Bible. The2 Flood-survivor Noah, the great-grandfather of Nfmrod, was still living at this time. Genesis 9:28, 29 tells us: “And Noah continued to live three hundred and fifty years after the deluge. So all the days of Noah amounted to nine hundred and fifty years and he died?’
In all his three hundred and fifty years after the Flood Noah did not make himself king over all the human family, although he was now the family head of the whole human family. It is certain he did not anoint or appoint Nimrod to be king over any part of the human family. There was no reason for this. According to Genesis 6:9, “Noah was a righteous man. He proved himself faultless among his contemporaries. Noah walked with the true God." Therefore Noah
* See the book entitled "The Two Baby Ions Or The Papal Worship Proved To Be The Worship at Nimrod And Ills Wife," by the clergy* num AJ rounder Hislop, with all. Jis references to Nimrod Ln the Index, page S2S, edition ot 11126. Published by Partridge, xx>ndvn< Englund.
looked to the true God as his Ruler or King, For him to set up a kingdom over his growing family after the Flood would have meant for Noah to be ambitious, greedy for power, and to rebel against the sovereignty of God the Creator and thus quit walking with God, This is what Noah refused to do; and he would not approve of any of his sons’ or grandsons’ doing so, Noah was not a kingmaker.
In this respect Nimrod was unlike his greatgrandfather Noah. He wanted to be somebody, making a name for himself as a hero. He was the first one after the Flood that made a start in doing this, and in this way he set a bad example. In proof of this it is written: “And Cush himself became father to Nimrod. He it wTas that made the start in becoming a mighty one in the earth.” i 1 Chronicles 1:10) Nimrod used his mighty position selfishly. He used it as a steppingstone to making himself king over his brother man; and the seat of his government he set up in Babylon (Babel). This was a defiance of God hi heaven. It was a rebellion against the universal sovereignty of God, and this rebellion was enlarged when Nimrod extended his royal power over Assyr ia. By some scholars it is understood that his name Nimrod is drawn from the Hebrew verb mnrdd, as found in Genesis 14:4, In this case the name would be actually the first person, plural number, of the verb mar&t' in the jussive mood, and would mean “We wiZZ rebel!’’ or, “Let us rebel!”
This idea is borne out in the Jewish interpretative translations of the Bible called Targums. For example, the Jerusalem Targum explains: “He was powerful in hunting and in wickedness before the Lord, for he was a hunter of the sons of men, and he said to them, 'Depart from the judgment of the Lord, and adhere to the judgment of Nimrod!’ Therefore it is said: ’As Nimrod is the strong one, strong in hunting, and in wickedness before the Lord-’ ” The Targum of Jonathan tells us: “From the foundation of the world none was ever found like Nimrod, powerful in hunting, and in rebellions against the Lord?’ The Chaldee paraphrase of 1 Chronicles 1:10, the verse quoted in the preceding paragraph, reads: “Cush begat Nimrod, who began to prevail in wickedness, for he shed innocent blood, and rebelled against Jehovah?*
The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in his work entitled “Antiquities of the Jews?* in Book lt chapter 4t paragraphs 2, 3, says: “Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God; Ite was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. Ue persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means that they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage that procured their happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other method of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his own power. . . . Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to "W1
esteem it a piece of cow ardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being at any degree negligent about the work.”-—Translation by Win. Whiston.
If the name Nimrod is thus taken from the verb meaning to rebel, then this name must have been given to Ibis man after he had started out on his rebellious course; it was not the name given to him at birth.* But regardless of the exact meaning of his name, Nimrod displayed rebellion against Jehovah God in starting world politics and sett ing up himself as king. Babylon, his capital, thus was a kingdom in rebellion against God the Universal Sovereign. So from her very start she was no part of the universal organization of Jeho-
• Dr. Alexander J1 l-dop derives the name from two Hebrew words, which would make the name Nimrod, mean tLSubducr of the teopard," a name thul wimlcJ hardly t>e giwen to him at tils birth. This name would, cat! attention to Nimrod's him tins prowess.—See Tftd Two JEtab-
ar* 192G edition, 41, footnote.
vah God, and Babylon never became a part of it later on. She was never a kingdom of God. She never departed from her opposition to God.
Seventy-five years before her frill in 539 B.C., God’s prophet Jeremiah said: “Against Jehovah . . . she has sinned. . . . For it is against Jehovah that she has acted presumptuously.” And, addressing Babylon, Jeremiah said: "It was against Jehovah that you excited yourself.’* Then he added: “ ‘Look! I am against you, O Presumptuousness/ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, Tor your day must come, the time that I must give you attention. And Presumptuousness will certainly stumble and fall, and it will have no one to cause it to rise up? ’■■■• -Jeremiah 50: 14, 29, 24, 31, 32.
THE FOUNDING OF BABYLON'
Nimrod, the first king reported among mankind, was not “king by the grace of God/’ We can see this from the purpose for which his capital city was built and from the attitude that God took toward it One of the eight human survivors of the L- Iood, namely, Shem, wrote about it in his history and said: “These were the families of the sons of Noah according to their family descents, by their nations, and from these the nations were spread about in the earth after the deluge* Now all the earth continued to be of one language and of one set of words. And it came about that in their journeying eastward they eventually discovered a valley plain in the land of Shinar, and they took up dwelling there. And they began to say, each one to the other: ‘Come on! Let us make bricks and bake them with a burning process/ So brick served as stone for them, but bitumen served as mortar for them. They now said: ‘Come on! Let us build ourselves a city and also a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we
warships. About fifty miles northwest of Babylon the Euphrates and the Tigris approach to within twenty-five miles of each other. Below that area the two rivers have deposited what is called the Plain of Shinar or of Chaldea, which plain is more definitely spoken of as Babylonia. This plain is about two hundred and fifty miles long and is a hundred miles across at its widest place.
Later, because of its location between the Euphrates and the Tigris the J and was called Mesopotamia, which nttme means 4‘the land between the rivers.”' It was into this plain that Nimrod and others with him came during the second century after the Flood,
These pioneers found the land of Shinar very productive. They decided to stay there. The building of a city was suggested to them. With what was it to be built? There was no stone in the neighborhood to be quarried, but there was plenty of mud or day. Besides that, there were pits of bitumen. Conveniently they decided to make bricks by molding them into shape and drying and hardening them “with a burning process,” Early Babylonian brick was apparently kiln-dried rather than sun-dried. To hold the bricks together wThen built up into the walls of a structure they used slimy bitumen, fountains of which existed in that neighborhood.* This served as mortar for the builders. But why build a city?
God was interested in the purpose behind the building. He had given the mandate to Noah and his family to become fruitful with children and become many and fill the earth to the point of making it swarm with men
* Says Tftia Jb’we.vclopa^ta Prifanaioa of the town of Hit. which was established about 100 miles above Babylon and where the frriite plain Of Babylonia begins: " ‘Hit, a town of Asiatic Turkey, In the vilayet of Bagdad, tm the west bank of the Euphrates, , . . From time imrae-mnrial Et has been the chief source of supply of bitumen for Babylonia, the prosperity of the town <3cpen<lEn£ always upon its bitumen Toun tains. . . . In the Bi hie (Ezra Si 15) it Is called Ahava; the orlK-Inal Babylonian name scents to have been I';l, ...”
and women. (Genesis 9:1, 7) At that time the earth could easily have taken care of what is today called a "population explosion,” for most of the earth was unpopulated and it was a wide country. It was not the time for people lo hole themselves up in cities and develop a materialistic way of life and show indifference to God's mandate lo mankind to fill the earth with righteous people from the three great family heads, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
However, those early bricklayers and masons had lost interest in God’s mandate to man: they wanted the more settled life, with more ease and convenience. Their being all of one language and of one set of words made it very easy for them to build together. There is no Bible record that they formed a masonic lodge, but they had great building ambitions. They would make their city outstanding with a special piece of masonry, "a tower with its top in the heavens/’ This, though, was not for them to get nearer to God.
They began building on the banks of the Euphrates River. Their purpose was not to glorify God’s name and to fulfil! his mandate and spread the knowledge of his name to the ends of the earth. They said: "Let us make a celebrated name for ourselves, for fear we may be scattered over all the surface of the earth.” (Genesis 11:4) They desired to herd together and have a local ruler over them. They knew that they had to give their city a name; and this name they would make famous. Then they would consider themselves to be honored in being known as citizens of this city.
As for that “tower with its top in the heavens,” what was its real purpose? The city builders did not need to fear another deluge such as had occurred in the days of their still-living forefather Noah. After that Flood God caused the rainbow to appear and established an anti’ deluge covenant with mankind, saying: “It shall occur that when I bring a cloud over Hie earth, then the rainbow will certainly appear in the cloud* And I shall certainly remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living soul among all flesh; and no more will the waters become a deluge to bring all flesh to ruin. And the rainbow must occur in the cloud, and I shall certainly see it to remember the covenant to time indefinite between God and every living soul among all flesh that is upon the earth.” (Genesis 9:1416) Not only did the tower builders not need to build a deluge refuge, but they could never build a tower as high as fifteen cubits above the top of the highest mountain, which was the high water level of the Flood.
Genesis 7:19, 20.
The tower was not to be merely ornamental as a landmark for their city. It was to be a tower of religious worship, a ziggurat. It was to be, not a tapering circular tower with a spiral staircase or ramp running around on the outside to get to the top. According to historical descript ions of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian towers and the tower foundations that have been uncovered by archaeological digging in the earth r this model tower of worship was on a square or rectangular basis. It was a pyramidal tower made up of a number of stories with room on the top floor for a temple. It would look like a series of terraces, and its broad means of ascent would wind around outside the structure. A broad stairway may have been built perpendicularly against the face of the front waD and directly up to the first or second story or perhaps even up to the top on the last story. Because of its great height the tower would dominate the city, and it would give the utmost prominence to the matter of religion. It would call attention to the chief god of the city. It would be a religious city.
Was this done to honor the true God in the heavens and to promote and preserve his worship? Was it therefore acceptable to him? The history of Shem, the
Reconstruction of the Tower of Babel
son of Noah, supplies us the answers. After telling of the beginning of the building of the city and its religious tower, Shem goes on to say:
“And Jehovah proceeded to go down to see the city and the towcr that the sons of men had built. After that Jehovah said: 'Look! They are one people and there is one language for them all, and this is what they sirrt to do. Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. Come now! Let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not listen to one another’s language.’ Accordingly Jehovah scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth, and they gradually left off building the city. That is why its name was called Babel, because there Jehovah had confused the language of all the earth, and Jehovah had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth. This is the history of Shem/1—Genesis 11:5-10,
Shem*s history shows that Jehovah God made a close-up inspection of the construction work there on the banks of the Euphrates River. Not that Jehovah personally had to come down from his place in heaven to make the inspection and listen in on what the builders were saying as to the reasons for the building program; but that Jehovah turned his attention down to the citv and its tower and found out what was planned by the builders. He had not authorized the building of a city to become the seat of an earthly ruler, nor did he take it as unimportant that they were building a temple tower for a false worship. This was rebellion against his universal sovereignty; this was an apostasy, a falling away from the worship of the God of Noah, the prophet of Jehovah; this was disobedience to the divine mandate for the filling of the earth with worshipers of Jehovah as God. This was a bad work, and in it they were united as one people. Their use of one language helped them to work together and encourage one another.
If this was the kind of start in an organized way that they made to quit worshiping Jehovah and doing his Will, then to what lengths would they carry their organized efforts? They would ambitiously have one thing after another come to mind that would be at-R—-
tamable in a wrong way, in a wrong direction, by unified, organized action. When we think of it today, we can appreciate how correctly Jehovah, man’s Creator, spoke in his ability to foresee the future. We have only to read the news of today, concerning the cold war between the Eastern bloc of nations under Soviet Russia and the Western bloc under the United States of North America. The arms race between the Iwo blocs has finally been carried up far higher than the temple tower there on the banks of the Euphrates, far higher than the top water level of the deluge of Noah’s days, yes, far into the higher altitudes of outer spate, by the explosion of a thermonuclear device 250 miles above the surface of the earth, likelv r *
tampering thereby with the balance of nature and affecting all the earth. That was on July 9, 1962.
Without question, Jehovah hinted at this by his remark forty-two centuries ago. Today we should appreciate that that ancient organized start in a selfish, ambitious way at the original Babylon was of no small consequence. Away back there Jehovah well knew it.
For mankind’s own good as well as for the carrying out of the divine mandate for filling the earth, in at least a token way, Jehovah took action. Just the very thing against which they were trying to build, Jeho-vah brought about, namely, the scattering of them. He did it in a miraculou- niEinner, beyond the power of modern psychologists to explain. Through the first man, Adam, Jehovah had given them the power of speech, together with a language that intelligent men had by then cultivated for over seventeen centuries. Suddenly almighty Jehovah broke up the unity of the city builders. lie caused some change in their mental intelligence that blanked out the memory of their former one original language. So they began talking brand-new languages, one group this language and another group that language, with no one being gifted with ability to interpret one language into another. No longer understanding their fellow masons, they found it perplexing to try to work together. Gradually they left olT building the city. They scattered, each one to his own language group. Their unity in rebellion against God broke down.
HOU IT WAS NAMED
The city now received a name that has become famous down to the present day, but not the name by which the first builders wanted to make a name for themselves, as its citizens. The patriarch Noah and his faithful son Shem called this city in the land of Shinar by the name of Babel, because this is what Jehovah their God called it. The name bespeaks God’s execution of judgment on the city, for the name is drawn from the verb baldly which means “to mingle, mix, confuse* confound?* The name was shortened from BaZbdl to BtiMZ and means “Confusion/* In fact, the Greek Scp-tuagint 1 ranslation of Genesis 11:9 calls it tfyynOi/si-s (SYTXYSIS), which means “Confusion/* But later, when talking about the city at that place, the Greek Septuagint Bible called it Babylon.
Of course, the people who stayed there at the incompleted city did not like this name, which called attention to Jehovah’s judgment and his vindication of his universal sovereignty* Says the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus: “After this they were dispersed abroad on account of the difference of their languages, and went out by colonies everywhere; and each colony took possession of that land unto which God led them, so that the whole continent was filled with them, both the inland and maritime count t ies* . . , But Nimrod, the son of Chus, stayed and tyrannized at Babylon, as we have already observed?** So a local tradition grew up that claimed that the city's name was taken from the two words Boh, meaning “Gate,” and EL, meaning “God," to make it a holy name. In ancient cuneiform inscriptions it is correctly written BdbiZu (=£tabi-ilu); in old Persian it is Bdbirus (Bdbcrirws), and in the Pali legend of India the name is ftab&u In old Accadlan it is Ka-dinyira and means “Gate of God/1
In ancient times judicial court used to be held in the spacious city gate. From the oldest antiquity to the present day the word (meaning “Gate”) is the designation given in the Near Bast to a seat of government*! Thus by its citizens Babylon was called God's seat of government, not meaning, of course, Jehovah’s seat*
* zlKtE<imuJtrff ri/ ter 6, paragraph in 1349.
i See page 352 edition of
tAe Book 3U chapter 5, para graph 1; and chap* 3r as translated from the Greek by Wm, Whiston of Ji Xew Ctwsmettfar y ojt (Tenoef** by F. Delltzch?
c H
P
E
The Religion of Babylon
^»FTER Jehovah frustrated the build-crs of Babylon by confusing their language, the majority of them left the land of Shinar in the Mesopotamian valley and scattered in various directions, into Africa# into Europe and into eastern Asia. When united in building Babylon, they had had one common religion, a religion out of harmony with Jehovah, the God of their fore fall ter Noah. Now, wherever they went, they carried this common false religion, but. of course, in their own new language. The religious ideas remained the same, but the names were diff erent. Here, then, was the beginning of the worldwide empire of false religion based on the religion of ancient Babylon. So it is not surprising that The Americana Annual should tell us;
In northern Iraq, government archaeologists found 2d millennium B.C. day tablets inscribed in the Sumerian and Babylonian languages. It is hoped that they will shed new light on Mesopotamian civilisation. . . .
The noted Assyriologist, Prof. Samuel N. Kramer of the University of Pennsylvania. Suggests that the Indus River civilization of 2500 to 1500 B.C. originated from a more ancient Mesopotamian (pre-Sumerian) civilization which had fled to the Indus Valley when the Sumerians wont to Mesopotamia in strength. He suspects thiit the Indus civilizations were established by the people sometimes referred to as Ubaidians, after Al llbaid, a site In southern Mesopotamia (Iraq) to which their culture has been traced.
In India, government archaeologists have been excavating the 3d millennium B.C, seaport city of Lothai, on the west coast north of Bombay. . . . Moreover, ties with distant Assyria and Egypt are shown, . . . The city, which was built on brick platforms, reveals an advanced sense of town planning and sanitation.—Under “Archaeology," page 14, paragraphs 2-4.
Naturally the religion of ancient India should trace back to the religion of Babylon (Babel) f and the evidences are that it does.*
Nimrod remained the first king of Babylon. Since the Babylonians did not approve of recognizing Jehovah as the one true God, who had preserved mankind through the Flood, they would turn to the worship of something else. After Nimrod died the Babylonians would be inclined to hold him in high regard as the founder or buildei' arid first king of their city and as the organizer of the old original Babylonian Empire. This would at length lead to their making him a god, the guardian god of their city. When Babylon reached its greatest glory in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar II, who is mentioned in the Holy Bible, the chief god of the imperial city was Marduk. His temple there was called E-sayila (meaning “Lofty House”), the tower of which was called E-tc^w-nanki (meaning “House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth”). In connection with the god Marduk, who is called Mero-d h in the Bible, it is interesting to read the following comments:
“Nimrod has not been identified with any mythical hero or historic king of the [cuneiform] inscriptions. Some have sought identification with Gilgamesh, the Hood hero of Babylonia. . , . ; but. the most admissible correspondence is with Marduk, chief god of Babylon, probably its historic founder, just as Asshur, the god of Assyria, appears ... as the founder of the Assyrian empire, . . . Lack of identification, however, does not
* Sit TftO Tu'q Tfrrh.vfpn#. by the clergyman Alexander Hislop; particularly pages 135, 159, 233 rcganl in.< the god Indra, the king of the god*;; also pages 14 1G, 19-23.
necessarily indicate mythical origin of the name.” —The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 4, edition of 1955, page 2147.
“The name Nimrod has not been found in any ancient (sav older than 500 B.C.) non-Israelite document of’ inscription; and there is no conclusive evidence for identifying Nimrod with any of the names found in such documents. . . . Nimrod would suggest to a Jew or Syrian the idea of ‘rebel/ mrd = rebel; but this is not likely to be the etymology. By regarding the ‘N’ as performative, Nimrod has been identified with Merodach, the god of Babylon . . . He has been identified with'Gilgamesh, i he hero of the epic which contains the Babylonian Deluge story . . . with various historical kings of Babylonia, . . —The Encyclopaedia Britan
nica. Volume 19, edition of 1911, page 703. The Encyclopedia Americana speaks similarly.
“Two theories are now held in regard to Nimrod’s identity: . . . Those who identify Nimrod with Marduk, however, object that . . . the J cuneiform] signs which const cure the name of Marduk, who also is represented as a hunter, are read phonetically ‘Amar Udf; and ideographically they may be read ‘Namr Ud’—in Hebrew ‘Nimrod/ ”—The Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume 9, page 309.
Alexander Hislop, author of The Two Babytonx, al though deriving the name Nimrod from a
“leopard/* and rada or rad, “to subdue/’ docs identify Nimrod as the god Merodach. “There is no doubt/' says he, “that Nimrod was a rebel, and that, his rebellion was celebrated in ancient myths; but his name in that character was not Nimrod, but Merodach, or, as among the Romans, Mars, ‘the rebel/ or among the Oscans of Italy, Mamers ...» ‘The causer of rebellion/ ”—Page 44, footnote, of The Two Babylons.
The above quotations point to the deification of Nim-rod, Babylon’s first king and a “mighty hunter in op-p! >;i:nn to Jehovah.” (Genesis ICb'S-lO) V no his
er was, aside from being the wife of Cush the son of Ham, the Bible does not say. It does not say that her name was Semiramis. nor does it say that Nimrod later married his own mother, the wife of Cush. However. if Nimrod was deified for his pioneer connections with Babylon, it is almost certain that his mother would be held in high esteem and revered, if not also exalted to a goddess. This would result in a worship of mother and son together. In regard to this The Two Babylon#* pages 20, 21, says:
The Babylonians, in their popwldr rc7i<7ion, supremely worshipped a Godckss Mother and a Son, who was represented hi pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother’s arms . . . From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were wor-s hipped under the names of Isis ami Osiris, In India, even to this dayr as Isi and Iswara; in Asia as Cybele and I>eoius; in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupitcr-puer, or Jupiter, the boy; in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her anns; arid even in Thibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being represented with a child in her arms, and a $f£ory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist had been employed to set her up.
The original of that mother, so widely worshipped, there is reason to believe, was Semiramis, already referred to, who, it is well known, was worshipped by the Babylonians, and other eastern nations, and that under the niirnr of Rhea, the great Goddess “Mother/'
[On the above-mentioned Shing Moo, see page 686a of Volume 9 of the Cyclbpredia by M’Clintock and Strong-under SMn-Jfoo.l
In man’s original garden of Eden God made a promise, which the Babylonians who had fallen away from Jehovah God would easily be inclined to take to themselves wrongfully and to misapply. It was the promise that he made when he was pronouncing sentence upon the Great Serpent, Satan the Devil, for inducing the perfect human couple, Adam and Eve, to join him in rebellion against their Creator. Jehovah God there notified the Great Serpent of his coming destruction and indicated by whom it was to be executed. “Jehovah God proceeded to say to the serpent.: 'Because you have done this thing, ... I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel? ”—Genesis 3:14,15.
When Nimrod became a “mighty one in the earth” and displayed himself as a “mighty hunter” and set himself up as mankind’s first king at Babylon, it became easy for the Babylonians to run ahead of the Edenic prophecy's actual fulfillment. It became patriotic and nationalistic for them to apply the prophecy concerning the woman’s seed to Nimrod. Such a view would be encouraged, because it would bind the Babylonians more firmly to their king, Nimrod, and his successors in office. According to the blessing that the patriarch Noah pronounced upon his son Shorn, the woman’s seed ought to come through the line of Shem, and not through the line of Ham, whose son Canaan received a curse from Noah. (Genesis 9:24-27) Canaan was a brother of Cush and an uncle of Nimrod. Hence, by applying the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 to Nimrod, the woman’s seed would be presented as Hamitic and as a Cushite. Also Nimrod’s death, if it was a violent death, as legend says it was, would be explained as being the Great Serpent's act in bruising the heel of the woman’s seed.
This would, of course, make Nimrod’s mother, who was the wife of Cush, the mother of the seed that was to bruise the Great Serpent in the head. She would thus share the glory of her son Nimrod as the promised seed. This fact would lead to the worship of mother and son. It may have been for this reason that Cush’s wife, the mother of Nimrod, came to be called Semiram is, or Z’emir-amit. The name means “The Branch Bearer.”*
The symbolic branch would be Nimrod as the one to bring peace and to make world calamity pass away. Nimrod's mother, the wife of Cush, was a granddaughter of Noah's wife, who survived the great flood the same as the Tishes did. In the face of such a background for Nimrod’s mother, it is interesting to read the following in The Britannica, Vol
ume 24, edition of 1911, page 61.7, under Semiramls:
Of this we already have evidence in [the ancient Greek historian 1 Herodotus, who ascribes to her the banks that confined the Euphrates (i. 181) and knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon (itL 155). . . . according to the legends, in her birth as well as in her tlisapiwrance from earth, Semiramis appears as a goddess, the daughter of the fish-goddess Atargatis, and herself connected with the doves of Ishtar or Astarte.
[See Hislop’s The Two Babylon3j pages 86, 270.1
TRIADS OF DEITIES
As the first mortal man after the Flood to be deified, Nimrod would become “the father of the gods” in the Babylonish system of false worship. Likewise, Nimrod’s mother, the so-called Semiramis, would become “the mother of god,” or, “the mother of the gods.” So, in the religious triad of Cush and his wife and Nimrod, more glory and prominence would be given to the son Nimrod, just as in the trinity doctrine of “God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost,” Christendom gives more attention to the Son than to the Father. But in some sections of Christendom more honor and adoration arc given to the Virgin Mother
* From Ze, meaning **The,” or “That"; emir, “Branch’1; and titnif, ’’Bearer.'* Under the name Semiramis, the fourth-century Greek lexicographer Hcsychius says that Scmlrarnis is a name for a "wild pigeon.” evidently referring to Noah's wild pigeon that brought the olive leaf back to the ark. (Genesis 8: $-12) See Isaiah 17: 6, 9 (W), where the Hohrow word ermfr Is translated ’'branch.*’ Refer also to Hislop's The Tim Halyytotifi, page 79 and footnote.
than to the Son or the Father; and it is taught that the Mother is the one who will actually bruise the Great Serpent in the head, and she is exalted as the Mother of God.—Genesis 3:15, Douay.
As Nimrod was raised to the rank of a god to be worshiped by the Babylonians, the question rightly comes up, Whom did Nimrod himself worship as god? Not Jehovah, the God of his great-grandfather, for Nimrod was in opposition to Jehovah. Therefore, since Nimrod rebelled against the true God Jehovah, he must have had the spirit of the great first rebel against Jehovah God, By making himself a rebel like that original and chief rebel against the one true God, Nimrod was in effect worshiping Satan the Devil, that one who started rebellion in heaven and who then spread rebellion into the earth, even in the garden of Eden.
…