The question whether Merodach ever was really king of Babylon need not detain us here, as it is of no importance. Suffice it to say that ‘the king’ (Accad. lugala, Bab. Sarru) par excellence was one of his titles. This he apparently bore as ‘king of the gods’; but there is no reason to suppose, on that account, that he was not king of men durin his life on earth. The second point in this parall refers to the cities over which He had dominion, and in this connexion it is to be noted that, whilst Gilgame&’ (Gistubar) seems to have been king of Erech only, Merodach was, first of all, king of Baby lous and remained patron god of the city practically to the last. Besides this, he seems to be mentioned, in the bilin story of the Creation, as the builder of Niffer (identified by the
bbins with Calneh), together with its temple
-kura, and of Erech, with its temple E-ana (cf. ll. 39 and 40 with 6 and 7, JRAS, 1891, pp. 394, 395). The building of Babylon is referred to in 1. 14 (/.c.), and it may be supposed that he was also regarded by the writer as its constructor. If the statement of the Rabbins be correct, which makes Niffer to be the same as Calneh, then we have here Merodach mentioned in close connexion with three of the four cities referred to in Gn 10" as the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod, and it is not by any means improbable that future discoveries may reveal to us in the same connexion Accad,
which would make the fourth.
In addition to this, however, Merodach was regarded by the Babylonians (though they did not look, to all appearance, upon that side of his char- acter as the most important) as a mighty hunter, for it was he who, when all the other gods held | back, attacked, and caught with his net, the great
NIMSHI
dragon of Chaos, as detailed in the Babylonian story of the Creation :— ‘The lord * spread wide his net to enclose her, The evil wind following behind, he sent on before. Tiamtu opened her mouth as wide as she could— He caused the evil wind to enter before she closed her lips. The evil winds filled out her body,
Her consciousness was taken away, wide opened she her
mouth, He seized the weapon, 4 Sundered her nero a hs aot He enclosed her, put an end to her life, Threw her body prone and stood thereon.’t
Merodach was indeed ‘a hero in hunting’ (gibbér gayid), which, as we know from the Assyrian magn dees was often accomplished with a net,} as in the legend here quoted ; and this circumstance seems to complete the list of parallels needed. A large portion of the Semitic- Babylonian legend of the Creation is devoted to this exploit of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, testifying to the importance with which the early Babylonians regarded it, and it is mentioned in the eulogies pronounced upon him by his father Ea or Aa at the end of the story.
The legends that have been preserved cencerning Nimrod would seem to show that his fame in the country of his exploits rests more upon what was known of him there than upon the somewhat meagre account in Genesis, and it is probably for the same reason that so many places there are named after him.§ Thus we have the Birs Nimroud, the ancient Borsippa, near the ruins of Babylon, Tel Nimroud, near Baghdad, the dam Suhr el- Nimroud, across the Tigris near Mosul, and the mound of Nimroud, the ancient Calah. To all appearance, he was regarded in later times in his native country as a great builder also. As has been pointed out above, he seems to have been looked upon by the Babylonians as the builder of Babylon, and the bilin Creation story appar- ently attributes to him the completion of E-sagila, the great temple-tower in that city, which was certainly of the type of the Tower of Babel, even if it were not that erection itself. This may account for the connexion of Nimrod with the catastrophe of the confusion of tongues, ascribed to him in the East both in comparatively ancient and in more recent times. T. G, PINCHEs.
NIMSHI (‘?>3).—The grandfather of king Jehu, who is generally designated ‘ ben-Nimshi,’ 1 K 1915 (B Ναμεσθεί, A om.), 2 Καὶ 9? (B Ναμεσσεί, A ’Auecel) 4 (B Ναμεσσεί, A* Ναμεσσά) Ὁ (B Napecoelas, A -las), 2 Ch 227 (B Ναμεσσεί, A -l).
NINEVEH (m3; LXX Νινευή, NT (Text. Rec.] Nwevt, Gr. and Rom. writers Nivos, Ninus).—In Gn 10" it is stated (according to the better transla- tion) that Nimrod (wh. see) or some other Baby- lonian ‘went forth’ out of Chaldwa and founded Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir (2édit-wri in Assyrian, ‘the streets or public places of the city’). A similar tradition is indicated in Mic 5°. The native monuments show that the tradition is correct, and that Nineveh was once included within the boundaries of the Babylonian empire (cf. art. ASSYRIA in vol. i. p. 1805, and Driver in Hogarth’s Authority and Archeology, p. 29f.). In fact it seems to have taken its name from the Babylonian city of Ninf on the Euphrates, which
* i.e. Merodach,
ἡ Fried. Delitzsch, Weltschipfungsepos, pp. 106, 107, lines 96-104, revised by comparison with the original text.