Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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violent invader of his neighbours' rights and properties, and a persecutor of innocent men, carrying all before him, and endeavouring to make all his own by force and violence. He thought himself a mighty prince, but before the Lord (that is, in God's account) he was but a mighty hunter. Note, Great conquerors are but great hunters. Alexander and Cesar would not make such a figure in scripture-history as they do in common history; the former is represented in prophecy but as a he-goat pushing, Da 8:5. Nimrod was a mighty hunter against the Lord, so the LXX; that is,
(1.) He set up idolatry, as Jeroboam did, for the confirming of his usurped dominion. That he might set up a new government, he set up a new religion upon the ruin of the primitive constitution of both. Babel was the mother of harlots. Or,
(2.) He carried on his oppression and violence in defiance of God himself, daring Heaven with his impieties, as if he and his huntsmen could out-brave the Almighty, and were a match for the Lord of hosts and all his armies. As if it were a small thing to weary men, he thinks to weary my God also, Isa 7:13.
9 He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said,
Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.
10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and
Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
Nimrod was a great ruler: The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Ge 10:10. Some way or other, by arts or arms, he got into power, either being chosen to it or forcing his way to it; and so laid the foundations of a monarchy, which was afterwards a head of gold, and the terror of the mighty, and bade fair to be universal. It does not appear that he had any right to rule by birth; but either his fitness for government recommended him, as some think, to an election, or by power and policy he advanced gradually, and perhaps insensibly, into the throne. See the antiquity of civil government, and particularly that form of it which lodges the sovereignty in a single person. If Nimrod and his neighbours began, other