NEMROD (Heb. Nimrādh, Septuagint Neṣṇā). - Son of Chus, of Hamitic stock, of whom it is said that he was a great hunter and founded an Empire (Gen. 10:8-12) in Babylon and other cities of the land of Shinar (= Sumer), whence he went to Assur, to found Nineveh and other Assyrian centres (hence Assyria is called in Mich. 5:5 the land of N.).
Attempts to trace in Sumerian-Akkadian literature a name of which the biblical one might be considered an echo have been made in many ways, but without definitive results, since they are always hypothetical reconstructions. Many think of the name Nimurta (NIN-IB), god of war and hunting. Linguistically, a reconstruction such as Nin-Marad, “Lord of Marad” (an ancient Sumerian city), is better.
In the popular imagination (which has an echo in Dante’s Nembrotto [Inf. XXXI, 34 sgg.; Purg., XII, 34 sgg.; Par. XXVI, 126]) he became a proverbial expression for being gigantic and brutal.