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 by Professor Oppert, makes the word a geographical name, but such an explanation is evidently quite insufficient to account for the traditions attached to the name.

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; but, beside other objections, we have the fact that Merodach was considered by the Babylonians to have been one of the creators of the world, and therefore they could not have supposed him to be a deified king whose reign was after the Flood. I have always felt that Nimrod, whose name figures so prominently in Eastern tradition, and whose reign is clearly stated in Genesis, ought to be found somewhere in the cuneiform text, but I first inclined to the mistaken idea that he might be Hammurabi, the first Arab king of Berosus, as this line of kings appeared to be connected with the Cosseans. This identification failing, I was entirely in the dark until I discovered the Deluge tablet in 1872, I then conjectured that the hero whose name I provisionally called Izdubar was the Nimrod of the Bible, a conjecture which I have strengthened by fresh evidence from time to time.

Considering that Nimrod was the most famous of the Babylonian kings in tradition, it is evident that no history of the country can be complete without some notice of him. His absence from previous histories, and