Election day. But it's a Thursday, not a Tuesday – 1784, not 2024 – and the Rev. Joseph Huntington is stepping up to the Hartford plate, his sermon at the ready for Gov. Griswold and the assembled legislators. Just yesterday, ratified copies of the treaty were exchanged in Paris. So ended what one had called “a war which will one day shine more illustriously in the historic page than any which has happened since the time of Nimrod and the Giants.”1 A new nation had been born, and Pastor Joseph's big brother Samuel had played his part – a signer of the Declaration, president of the Continental Congress, and now Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut. No time to dwell on family pride, though; the new state government was waiting on Pastor Joseph to begin.
God, said Pastor Joseph, “saw all his works, and all the works and ways of men, the whole business and result of the world, as clearly before he began to create as he will at the consummation of all things.”2 Before light was born, from eternity he'd seen Eve's teeth break the fruit's skin, the ark splishing and splashing in the flood, brick atop brick at Babel. And God has worked, Joseph testified, through these twists and turns of history to sculpt the peoples of the earth in many ways, even through “the event of war foreign or intestine, and many new nations have rose out of blood.”3 Reflecting the sentiments of his day and place, Joseph declared how “we once loved Britain most dearly, but Britain the Tyrant we could not love. Our souls abhorred her measures.... We rose from the dust where we had long been prostrate – our breasts glowed with noble ardor – we invoked the God of our fathers, and we took the field.”4 And yet all this had been the mysterious wisdom of God, he said, for “God has often made the lawless ambition and proud spirit of men instrumental in making new kingdoms or dividing ancient ones. As in the case of Nimrod, a proud and lawless man, a man of blood in contempt of heaven, a mighty hunter before the Lord, he soon began a kingdom distinct for himself.”5
There's that funny name again: 'Nimrod.' He's mighty mysterious in the Bible, maybe because – as some think – there was a longer Nimrod epic that circulated of which the Bible only kept these highlights.6 His story's told now in just this little five-verse “digression of particular political significance.”7 Verse 10 is the first appearance of another key word in the Bible: 'kingdom.' Nimrod is “the first person described explicitly as having a kingdom,”8 which seems to make him “the first king mentioned in the Scriptures,”9 a pretty important position to be in. These few verses we've read cover “the beginnings of kingship and, thus, of political rule in the world.”10
So roll back the clock to the days of yore in the 'land of Shinar,' to ancient Sumer, where the people said that “when the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish,”11 a city a few miles east from a little riverside town called Babylon. But then, so they tell us, “Kish was smitten with weapons; its kingdom was brought to Uruk.”12 Uruk had been “a hotbed of technological invention” long before 3000 BC, by which time they'd begun waging war.13 A sign of the turbulent early 2000s, they built a massive defensive wall, a feat credited to Uruk's larger-than-life ruler Gilgamesh, heir of kings Enmerkar and Lugalbanda. Among his notable successors was Lugalzagesi, who came in and raised Uruk to dominance by conquering Kish and many other cities of Sumer; his records claim the god Enlil “put all the lands at his feet and, from east to west, made them subject to him. … Enlil permitted him no rival; under him the lands rested contentedly, the people made merry.”14
Enter a man known to history as Sargon, 'True King' – we still haven't settled whether it's a name he was born with or adopted.15 He was a social outsider, not a Sumerian by blood or culture.16 Later stories told how his mom, a priestess illegally pregnant, made a basket and put her baby boy in it and floated him down the river, Moses style (cf. Exodus 2:3).17 These legends say that, after driving far down the Euphrates, a gardener fished him out of the water and adopted him, raising him to become cupbearer to King Ur-Zababa of Kish.18 Whatever the story, over 4300 years ago, Sargon took over the city of Kish while renoving another town further north, Agade, into “the first purpose-built capital” in the world.19 He marched his army south and, to hear him tell it, he “was victorious over Uruk in battle, conquered the city, captured Lugalzagesi king of Uruk in battle, and led him off to the gate of the god Enlil in a neck stock.”20 In the process, Sargon says he “conquered fifty city governors with the mace of the god Ilaba,”21 “enabling him to rule all of Sumer to the headwaters of the [Persian] Gulf.”22 Thus “Uruk was smitten with weapons; its kingdom was brought to Agade.”23
No king until Sargon had unified these many cities into “a single territorial state,”24 and with Sargon came “the emergence of a new ideology of kingship,” no longer a shepherd of men but a hero on the battlefield.25 In these conquests, he claims that “Sargon, king of the world, was victorious in 34 battles; he destroyed their city walls as far as the shore of the sea.”26 He colonized Sumer with his own Akkadian people, who “saw themselves as dominating local populations rather than working pacifically with them.”27 Not content with Sumer, he began to spread northward to the land later known as Assyria, waging a campaign northwest into Syria to the edges of the Mediterranean, and then later he fought the eastern powers in Iran.28 People could readily imagine him saying: “Truly the mighty king, the king of battle, am I. No other king has yet gone where I have.”29 Later, “in his old age, all the countries revolted against him and besieged him in Akkad,” but “Sargon went out, defeated his adversaries, annihilated them, and slew their very large army,” keeping his empire intact in his hands.30 He died in the fifty-sixth year of his rule, likely in his eighties by then.
He left the throne to his son Rimush, who faced an immediate rebellion all over. He put it down with relish, claiming in campaigns against various rebellious city to have killed thousands of men, expelled thousands more, and taken thousands of prisoners captive31 – all in all, about a third of all adult men in the land did he subject to “cruel punishment, mass execution, or forced labor,” while confiscating massive tracts of land for his loyalists.32 He boasted of being “fully three times victorious over Sumer,” part of his own kingdom, “in battle.”33 When he was assassinated after nine years, the throne was left to another son of Sargon, Manishtusu – or, as he put it, “the god Enlil made him great, called his name, and granted to him the scepter of kingship.”34 He ruled fifteen years and waged battle overseas as far as Arabia,35 but he was also a builder, enlarging temples in Nineveh.36
His reign also ended by assassination, putting power in the hands of his son Naram-Sin, a man all too like his grandpa Sargon.37 A “profoundly unpopular king,” he faced a huge rebellion by people fed up with his empire.38 “All the four quarters revolted against him and confronted him,” his records say.39 He brags that “he filled the Euphrates River with their bodies.”40 Thus “he was victorious in nine battles in one year, and the kings whom they raised, he captured.”41 He “expanded the empire, quashed revolts, ruled for four decades, and eventually declared himself a living god..., a god made flesh.”42 “They built within Agade a temple to him,”43 and he began spelling his name, “Naram-Sin the Mighty,” with the symbol for godhood tacked on;44 he encouraged people to regard his late father as divine,45 and flatterers named themselves Rimush-Is-My-God, as they'd already been renaming themselves Sargon-Is-My-God.46 Naram-Sin was the first king to brag what a great hunter he was.47 What Sargon, his sons, and his grandson built, the Akkadian Empire, was the world's “first attempt to exercise political control over an extended and diversified territory,”48 an attempt widely resented by those under it.49
Later kings of Assyria, which the prophets call “the land of Nimrod” (Micah 5:5), were obsessed with Sargon's legacy.50 They imagined Sargon had laid down the gauntlet for his successors: “Lo, the king who wants to equal me: where I have gone, let him also go!”51 They thus used Sargon's memory as “ideological justification of an ever-expanding empire” of their own.52 And Genesis answers that memory by painting its picture of Nimrod.53 We read that “Cush fathered Nimrod” (Genesis 10:8), even though Nimrod's story is nowhere near the Cush in Africa; probably, this bit is pasted in with a wink because Sargon got his start in Kish.54 “The beginning of his kingdom was Babel” – part of the kingdom of Kish, in Sargon's day55 – “and Uruk, and Akkad,” the other cities where Sargon became king, and “all of them in the land of Shinar,” Sumer and Akkad (Genesis 10:10).56 After rooting his kingdom there, Nimrod “went into Assyria,” the land north of Shinar, “and built Nineveh, with the broad places of the city, and Kalhu, and the spring source between Nineveh and Kalhu, which is the great city” (Genesis 10:11-12) – both those cities being in Sargon's territory and later capitals of the Assyrian Empire.57
Genesis 10:9 pictures Nimrod as “a champion warrior,”58 “driven by a lust for domination,”59 so that he becomes “a deceiver, an oppressor, and a destroyer of earthborn creatures.”60 He “dared to usurp dominion over others that were not willing to allow it,”61 for “as a hunter behaves toward beasts, which are naturally wild and free, so did he oblige mankind to be in servitude and to obey him.”62 His achievements were through “murder and bloodshed,” and he “used tyranny to gain for himself a sovereignty that did not belong to him.”63 Thus Nimrod “acquired his kingdom through civil might and not through justice.”64 That all sounds very like Sargon & Sons.
For Nimrod had “begun to be a powerful one on the earth” (Genesis 10:8), reminding us of the disturbing folks before the flood who, born to the sons of God and daughters of man, were “the powerful ones who were of old” (Genesis 6:4). Looking back to them, Nimrod casts himself as a giant astride the world, a great hero winning glory, something more than a mere man.65 And just like them, Nimrod's appearance in the Bible is an omen of a coming tragedy.66 The words and themes used to describe Nimrod tie him closely to the story of Babel,67 which naturally has led many readers through the years to put him on scene as the ringleader of that project,68 with both stories being about “the imperial concentration of power.”69 He offered his people a utopia, a city safe from floods and foes; he dangled the tower's upward rise as a beacon of progress.70 But his real aim was to ape the powerful “men of the name” before the flood by making himself a legend.71 Kings often stamped their name and claim onto the bricks of their mighty works.72 This tower is to be a great imperial spectacle to “demonstrate the might, authority, and greatness – in short, the 'name' – of the regime.”73
As early Americans read this story, “old Nimrod collected a nation of robbers” who “swiftly advanced beyond the line of justice, while crimson carnage and pale devastation stalked behind them through the land. Slavery and despotism were the effects of conquest.”74 With that in mind, the bricks and mortar remind us of Israelites slaving at brick-making in a foreign land (Exodus 1:13-14), and given how Sargon & Sons forced captives to slave at their building projects, we wonder whether the builders of the tower are all acting as voluntarily as it seemed last week.75 Could they be under Nimrod's thumb, their blood, sweat, and tears demanded by the state?
Sargon's empire was “bureaucratic and centralized,” imposing uniformity where there'd been none before.76 The Assyrians after him bragged of imposing 'one mouth' on their diverse subjects, that is, unifying many peoples under the state agenda.77 Infamously, “for totalitarian governments, conformity is the stuff of life.”78 Gradually, indoctrination can lead to “unquestioning allegiance” from most subjects.79 Dissenters from Nimrod's project, those who question the state, can expect pointed questions – and pointed swords – aimed back at them.80 And so, through his “campaign for world domination” so audacious as to catch the sight of the LORD,81 Nimrod “corrupted the condition of the human way of life by a new way of living,” the way of the kingdom of man.82
The very name 'Nimrod' is Hebrew for 'We shall rebel!' – he's a rebel against the LORD God.83 No wonder Pastor Joseph dubbed Nimrod “a man of blood in contempt of heaven.”84 For the sake of his heroic ventures, he was willing to profane the world, break all norms, defy deity in order to grasp power.85 It's unsurprising that Christians, seeking a spiritual reading of the Bible, found that Nimrod “signifies figuratively the devil himself, the head of all evils,” who “scorned to be obedient to the will of his Maker” and thus “strove to obtain the citadel of God.”86 From Nimrod, “the spirit of domination ran through the world like a raging plague.”87
This story might seem irrelevant – after all, Sargon came to power so long ago that, if you went back even half that far, you'd have to wait a century and a half to hear angels sing to shepherds outside Bethlehem. But some early Jewish readers imagined Nimrod got his start through democratic election,88 and he only “little by little transformed the state of affairs into a tyranny.”89 And now we find ourselves poised in an election season of our own, with candidates for various offices promoted by political parties: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Solidarity, you name it. When our nation was yet dawning, Pastor Joseph referred to our elections as the time when “we choose such as we esteem men of the greatest wisdom and probity.”90 But Pastor Joseph also warned that, if these United States weren't careful, “proud, selfish, and wicked” people will “lust for offices for which they are utterly unfit,” and to get them, politicians would “make or propagate a thousand lies to stir up the jealousy of the people, enrage the multitude, and clear the seats of honor for themselves,” the fruit of which might lead to any number of “land-defiling crimes,” not unlike Nimrod's.91 Whether Pastor Joseph's prophecy has come to pass or not, well... you be the judge.
“Such a great tempest of a time” as ours calls for great wisdom on our part to navigate it, understanding that “the chief intention of a ruler, as of... any private person” like ourselves, “should be to please God in his [or her] works.”92 Thankfully, Christians in ages past thought a lot about what a good political authority should be like. For starters, ideally, “royal power must... acknowledge priestly dignity as superior,” that is, the state should give the utmost respect and support to religion, not exclude it.93 The Bible tells us that “a ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor” (Proverbs 28:16), and “the ruler will not be able to understand the duties of government fully if he does not know the reason why it was instituted.”94 As we look at the candidates for office, we can ask ourselves questions like, “Who shows the most respect for people of faith? Who seems to better understand what our government is for? Which of these people seems to have the most wisdom in life?”
Christians also observed that political rulers do well “if they prefer to govern their own base desires more than to govern any peoples.”95 They got that from the Bible, which advises that “whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Nimrod might be a mighty man on earth, but his heroism falls short of turning the sword at his own inward passion and desire. Nimrod can conquer cities and countries, but greater is anybody who conquers his own spirit. Can you imagine a politician who'd rather lose an election than lose her temper, who prefers governing his heart to governing a nation? Christians have long said that, “where it is the practice to select the prince by vote,” voters should look for “calmness and equability of temperament and a sober disposition devoid of all rashness.”96
Christians also said that any political system “should be so arranged as to remove from the king the opportunity of becoming a tyrant” like Nimrod, “and, at the same time, his power should be restricted so that he will not easily be able to fall into tyranny.”97 As we try to navigate this tempest we're in, one question we might want to ask is, “Which of these people, if in office, would face the greatest opposition when tempted to overreach? Who will have the most eyes watching their every move, the loudest voices keeping them accountable?”
It might sound odd to American ears, but the classic Christian view is that “all the particular goods which men obtain, whether wealth or profit or health or skill or learning, are directed, as to their end, to the good of the community.”98 And so “the further it departs from the common good, the more unjust the government will be.”99 So good rulers won't use their position “to satisfy their personal animosities,” not to serve this or that special interest, not to cater even to the majority at the expense of the minority, nor vice versa.100 A good ruler is chosen for “wisdom, a sense of justice, personal restraint, foresight, and concern for the public well-being.”101 In our day, this is even harder because we Americans can't even agree on what the good of a community is. A good ruler, though, is one who pursues the true common good, not a false common good such as homicide or mutilation under the guise of medical care, or racial prejudices under the guise of national solidarity.
Part
of the common good includes preserving the country's unity, and “when
it is removed and the community is divided against itself, social
life loses its advantage and instead becomes a burden. It is to this
end, therefore, that the ruler of a community ought especially to
strive: to procure the unity of peace.”102 Nimrods are, paradoxically, the opposite: they “prohibit
those things which create fellowship among men.”103
America has been losing social cohesion and trust for decades, or,
as one sociologist put it, “without at first noticing, we have been
pulled apart from one another and from our communities,”104
until, as in the late Roman empire, “all are distant in affection
from each other.”105
Are any candidates trying to bridge that gap in affection? Who aspires to foster fellowship? Who's a unifier?
Then, since “the good of the community should not be established for a particular length of time only,” wise men tell us that a good political leader will “ensure that successors take the place of those who are faltering,” that is, they'll make the kingdom stable over time.106 Nimrod didn't do that: Sargon's sons both fell to assassins, and his era's “wave of social change” led to deep “political instability.”107 Unlike the Akkadians and Assyrians, we don't have a hereditary monarchy; what we do have is a political process that, as one expert puts it, “depends on responsive representative institutions, fair elections, active civic participation, freedom of expression, and adherence to constitutional norms.”108 As we try to navigate this tempest with wisdom, we ask ourselves, “Which candidate sounds best for supporting that? Will this person act to preserve our process as trustworthy, reliable, fair, and respected? Will he or she make America more politically stable for the future?”
Another threat to a community “arises from within, and consists of perversity of will” when “some people are negligent in carrying out the duties which the commonwealth requires, or even damage the peace of the community when they transgress against justice and disturb the peace of others”; hence, a good political leader will “restrain the men subject to him from iniquity by laws and commands, penalties and rewards.”109 So as we navigate, we ask, “Will this person hold other officials to do what the public actually needs done? Will this person punish people who disturb others unjustly through crime?”
And then “the third obstacle to the preservation of the commonwealth comes from an external cause, as when the peace is undone by the invasion of enemies,” an issue ancient Israel often had to face (2 Kings 13:20).110 The responsibility of their king was to defend people from outside aggression (1 Samuel 14:47); they wanted to be able to say, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies” (2 Samuel 19:9). (Here, arguably, Nimrod excelled... discounting.all the times Sargon, Rimush, and Naram-Sin had to fight their own subjects!) So a good political leader, wise men said, will “furnish the community subject to him with protection against enemies.”111 As we navigate our present tempest, we simply ask, “Will this candidate do that? Will he or she make Americans safe?”
But the reason why communities exist isn't just for safety. We were made social creatures “to live according to virtue,” and the whole point of “human association is a virtuous life.”112 Nimrods notoriously aim to “prevent their subjects from becoming virtuous and increasing in nobility of spirit.”113 But a good political leader will use the powers of government to lead Americans toward being better people, toward rising above our base desires of the flesh, toward loving what's good – something we're not used to thinking of law being for, in our American way of thinking. And, of course, the best political leaders of all “make their power the servant of God's majesty, using it to spread the worship of God as much as possible.”114 How very unlike Nimrod that would be!
Within the bounds of encouraging people toward virtue, political leaders are called to promote prosperity. Yet early Christians mourned that, in late Rome, many citizens were “captives under an appearance of liberty.”115 Part of the reason was “tax collectors'... incessant and even continuous destruction,” so that the state would “extort tribute from the poor man for the taxes of the rich, and the weaker carry the load for the stronger.”116 On the other hand, medieval Christians worried that 'democracy' was when “the common people oppress the rich by force of numbers,” so that “the whole people will be like a single tyrant.”117 In the present tempest, we might ask, “Who is calling us to be our best selves as a community? Who will lift undue burdens off the poor, without oppressing others? Who is likeliest to help our community prosper?”
Of course, certainly many candidates will claim they'll do many of these things, and more. One ancient source remarked that Nimrod's aim was to make all people “continuously dependent on his own power,” promising the state's provision against all ills.118 Just so, in a democracy, “the voters listen during every election year to a constant litany of promises,” few of which are anything but convenient illusions.119 The Bible advises us, on the other hand, to “put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 146:3).
Even so, what you do and I do, if anything, might still lead us to somebody who's a little bit of a Nimrod. But here's the Bible's good news. Everything Nimrod does is “in the sight of the LORD” (Genesis 10:9), always subject to God's sovereignty. The LORD, not any Nimrod, is “actually king of the world.”120 “The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19). Satan, Sargon, Caesar, President – they're all living in the shadow of the LORD's throne up above. If they have any sense, then, “the LORD is to be feared by the kings of the earth” (Psalm 76:12). Whatever happens this month, “it is [God] who gives earthly kingdoms to the godly and the ungodly alike, according to his pleasure..., and if his reasons are hidden, does that mean that they are unjust?”121 Even as God's nation was oppressed by the rulers of the earth, they whispered to every tyrant, nimrod! – 'we will rebel,' one day, when salvation comes!122 For one day, God would “shake the heavens and the earth and overthrow the thrones of kingdoms” (Haggai 2:21-22). And that's a “divine determination which shall not be frustrated.”123
Of Sargon, it was said of old that those “who are with him are twelve,” and that as long as he had divine support, “Sargon will let his voice resound in the land.”124 And so, in the fullness of time, the LORD stooped down into humanity, and Christ let his voice resound in the land, “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with him” (Luke 8:1). Only his kingdom means healing and liberty for all, it means righteousness and peace and joy wild enough to shake heaven and earth (Luke 7:22; Romans 14:17). And where Sargon and his twelve chiefs approached the forest wood, where he “bowed down and readied his weapons” and “offered the pure sacrifices” to seek victory by conquest,125 Jesus, deserted by his twelve chiefs, didn't fear to approach the wooden cross, where he bowed his head and readied not weapons of carnal warfare but a humble heart (Philippians 2:8). This True King offered a purer sacrifice than Sargon could understand, rising to present his whole life and death to God for his people, and so, this complete, Jesus “sat down at the right hand of God” (Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews 10:12-13).
Now it's like Cotton Mather said it: “The people of God may need some shakes be given unto the world..., but such a mighty arm has our Savior. … If he do but utter his voice..., there shall everything be done that his people can wish for. A powerful Nimrod that has made nations to shake with the terror of his arms: our Lord Jesus Christ can easily shake such a one down into his grave.”126 And one day, the shout will ring out true and clear: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15). Therefore, “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). Amen.
