Another theory brought forward by the Rev. A. H. Sayce and Josef Grivel, “Transactions of Society of Biblical Archæology,” vol. ii. part 2, p. 243, and vol. iii. part 1, p. 136, identifies Nimrod with Merodach, the god of Babylon; partly on the ground of the similarity of name, Merodach being Amar-utuci or Amar-ud in Accadian, partly because Merodach the patron-deity of Babylon stood in the same relation to that city that Asshur did to Assyria (see Micah v. 6), and partly since we find Merodach called “a hero” like Nimrod in Genesis, and assigned “four divine dogs” as though he were a hunter. These dogs are Uccumu “the despoiler,” Acculu “the devourer,” Icsuda “the capturer,” and Iltebu “the carrier away.” Merodach, it must be remembered, is always represented as a man, and is armed with weapons of war.
Mr. Smith first fancied that Nimrod might be Khammuragas, whom he identified with the first Arab king of Berosus, as this line of kings appeared to be connected with the Cossæans. This identification failing, after the discovery of the Deluge tablet in 1872, he conjectured that the hero whose name is provisionally read Izdubar is the Nimrod of the Bible, a conjecture which has since been adopted by several other scholars.
The supposition that Nimrod was an ethnic or geographical name, which was at one time favoured by Sir Henry Rawlinson, and has since been urged by Professor Oppert, is quite untenable, for it would be impossible on this theory to account for certain features in what we are told of the hero.
Mr. Smith’s opinion that he was the hero of the Izdubar Epic was first founded on the discovery that the latter formed the centre of the national historical poetry, and was the hero of Babylonian legend—in fact, occupies much the same place as Nimrod in later Arab tradition.
Izdubar, moreover, agrees _exactly_ in character with Nimrod; he was a hunter, according to the cuneiform legends, who contended with and destroyed the lion, tiger, leopard, and wild bull or buffalo, animals the most formidable in the chase in any country. He ruled first in Babylonia over the region which from other sources we know to have been the centre of Nimrod’s kingdom. The principal scene, too, of his exploits and triumphs was the city of Erech, which, according to Genesis, was the second capital of Nimrod.
