6 min read

Nimrod Built Babel and Job Paid for It in the Land of Uz

Nimrod named his cities after his own defeats. His son Bel became the first idol. Job, living in Nimrod's shadow, became the test case for righteous suffering.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Cities Named After Failures
  2. What Nimrod Was Actually Doing at Babel
  3. Job in Nimrod's World
  4. How the Test Began
  5. What the Wager Actually Tested

Cities Named After Failures

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Nimrod was not just a hunter. He was an empire-builder who erected cities in the land of Shinar and gave them names that recorded, for anyone who could read them, his most significant defeats.

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The Book of Jasher - an ancient compilation referenced in the Hebrew Bible itself, in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18 - identifies the cities: Babel, named because God confused the language there. Erech, because from there God dispersed the people. Eched, memorial to a great battle. Calnah, where Nimrod's princes were consumed because they rebelled. Every city name was a monument to divine judgment. Nimrod built his empire and then, whether by some perverse pride or by divine compulsion, named each piece of it after the moment it had broken him.

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He was a man who could not stop building even after he understood that what he was building would be taken apart.

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What Nimrod Was Actually Doing at Babel

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The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a twelfth-century Hebrew chronicle drawing on ancient sources including the geographer Strabo of Caphtor, preserves a tradition that complicates Nimrod's lineage. According to this source, Nimrod was actually a son of Shem, not Ham - a descendant of the man who had inherited Eden and whose line would eventually produce Abraham. Before seizing power, Nimrod traveled to Jonithes, a son of Noah who possessed the spirit of God, and received from him a vision of four kingdoms. Jonithes showed him what Daniel would later see. He told him that Shem's descendants would rule first.

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Nimrod used that vision to position himself. He began his reign in Babylon. He fathered a son named Bel. After Nimrod died, Bel took his father's statue and set it up as an object of worship. The idolatry that would plague the world for millennia began there: a son preserving his father's image, a people accepting the image as divine. Nimrod had built the tower to reach heaven. His son Bel settled for installing a stone version of his father in heaven's place.

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Job in Nimrod's World

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Job lived in the land of Uz, in Nimrod's shadow, in the region that had been shaped by Nimrod's ambition and Bel's idolatry. The Legends of the Jews traces his position with specificity: he was doubly related to Jacob's family, both a grandson of Esau and the son-in-law of Jacob, having married Dinah after Shechem. He was the most pious Gentile who ever lived, called the servant of God - a title given only rarely. But he was not part of the line that bore the covenant. He lived in a world that Nimrod had built and Bel had filled with false worship, and he maintained his righteousness there without the structure of the covenant to support it.

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The Talmud asks: why is Job not named alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the formula that defines Israel's God? What kept him from that level of recognition? The answer, in the Legends tradition: when his suffering became too great, he murmured against God. He said things he should not have said. He held, but not without breaking. Had he held without breaking, the formula might read differently.

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How the Test Began

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Near Job's home stood an idol, worshipped by the local people. Job looked at it and asked: is this truly the creator of heaven and earth? He was not a skeptic making a rhetorical point. He genuinely wanted to know. That night a voice spoke to him: "Jobab - Job is sometimes called Jobab in the tradition - arise, and I will tell you who the Creator is." The voice revealed what the idol was not. That revelation was the beginning of Job's righteous life in the land of Uz.

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Satan held a grudge. The Legends tradition records that the accuser had old business with Job - some resentment that predated the wager of the book, rooted in an earlier time when Job had made a choice that the accuser had not forgiven. When the moment came to approach God with the challenge, the accuser was ready. He presented Job's prosperity as the explanation for Job's loyalty. Take it away, and the loyalty will follow.

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What the Wager Actually Tested

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God agreed. Strip him. Everything. Family, wealth, health. Leave him alive. See what he says.

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What Job said, after the boils and the deaths and the ash heap and the three friends who insisted that his suffering proved his guilt, was that he wanted to put God on trial. He believed in God's existence and power. He did not believe that what had happened to him was just, and he said so. He crossed a line. The tradition was uncomfortable with what he said and preserved it anyway, because what Job said across the forty-two chapters of his book was true in its own terms. The suffering was not a punishment. The friends were wrong. God said so from the whirlwind.

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Job lived in the world Nimrod had made, worshipped in it against the current of what surrounded him, suffered in it beyond proportion to anything he had done, and argued his way back to standing before a God who acknowledged the argument's validity by restoring everything twice over.

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NimrodJobCreationBabelSufferingApocryphaGinzberg
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From the tradition

Sources

5 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Jasher 11Book of Jasher

What about the generations that followed? What were they up to? The Book of Jasher, an ancient text referenced in the Bible itself (Joshua 10:13 and (2 Samuel 1:1)8), offers some fascinating, and sometimes startling, answers.

The story picks up with Nimrod, that mighty hunter we meet in Genesis. According to Jasher, Nimrod wasn't just hunting animals. He was building an empire. He constructs cities in the land of Shinar (that's Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq). And get this: the names of the cities themselves are a commentary on the Tower of Babel incident!

First, there's Babel, of course, named "because the Lord there confounded the language of the whole earth." Then Erech, because from there God dispersed the people. Eched, a memorial to a great battle. And finally, Calnah, where Nimrod's princes and mighty men were "consumed" because they rebelled against God. Ouch.

Nimrod settles in Babel and, despite the whole tower debacle, doubles down on wickedness. He's even given a new name, Amraphel, because "at the tower his princes and men fell through his means." His son, Mardon, is even worse! The verse reads, "From the wicked goeth forth wickedness." It's a harsh assessment, but it sets the stage for what's to come.

We also hear about a war between the families of Ham, one of Noah's sons. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, subdues five cities and makes them pay tribute for twelve years. This detail might sound random, but it actually connects to a later biblical narrative involving Abraham and his rescue of Lot (Genesis 14).

But the real heart of this chapter centers on a young Abram. We learn that in the fiftieth year of his life, Abram leaves Noah's house and returns to his father Terah. And here's where things get really interesting. Abram, already knowing the Lord, is appalled by the idolatry he finds in his father's home. Terah, you see, is not just a regular guy. He’s "captain of the host of king Nimrod," and he's deeply involved in serving "strange gods."

The text paints a vivid picture: twelve gods standing in their temples. Abram, filled with righteous anger, vows to destroy them. And he doesn't waste any time.

He confronts his father, asking about the Creator. Terah proudly presents his idols. Abram pretends to be interested in making offerings, even tricking his mother into preparing savory meat for the idols. But of course, the idols do nothing. They can't eat, they can't speak, they can't even move.

Then, the pivotal moment: Abram is "clothed with the spirit of God." He denounces the idols and, in a dramatic act of defiance, he grabs a hatchet and smashes them all! He then cleverly places the hatchet in the hand of the largest idol, setting the stage for a hilarious (and tense) confrontation with his father.

Terah, understandably furious, confronts Abram. Abram, with remarkable audacity, claims the largest idol destroyed the others in a fit of jealousy. Terah, of course, doesn't buy it. "Are they not wood and stone, and have I not myself made them?" he demands.

Abram then turns the question back on his father: "And how canst thou then serve these idols in whom there is no power to do anything? Can those idols in which thou trustest deliver thee?"

The argument escalates, culminating in Abram snatching the hatchet and running away. Terah, enraged, runs to Nimrod, demanding justice.

The scene shifts to a royal court. Nimrod, surrounded by his princes, interrogates Abram. Abram repeats his story about the large idol. When Nimrod scoffs, Abram turns his fire on the king himself, condemning his idolatry and warning him of divine judgment, even referencing the Flood as a consequence of similar wickedness.

Abram concludes with a powerful call to repentance: "Now therefore put away this evil deed which thou doest, and serve the God of the universe, as thy soul is in his hands, and then it will be well with thee." And if not? "Then wilt thou die in shame in the latter days."

The chapter ends with Abram lifting his eyes to heaven, declaring that the Lord sees all the wicked and will judge them. It's a powerful image of faith and defiance in the face of overwhelming opposition.

So, what do we take away from this? The story of Abram's iconoclasm, his smashing of idols, isn't just a tale of youthful rebellion. It’s a foundational narrative about challenging false gods, about speaking truth to power, and about choosing faith over conformity. It sets the stage for the entire Abrahamic tradition, reminding us that sometimes, the most faithful thing we can do is to break the idols in our own lives and in the world around us. And that takes courage, doesn’t it?

Full source
Chronicles of Jerahmeel XXXIIChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

Nimrod was not merely a tyrant. He was the seed of the world's first false religion. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, the compiler Jerahmeel drew on the ancient geographer Strabo of Caphtor to record an alternative tradition: Nimrod was actually a son of Shem, not Ham. He began his reign in Babylon and fathered Bel.

Before seizing power, Nimrod traveled to Jonithes, a son of Noah who possessed the spirit of the Lord. Jonithes foresaw through astrology that Nimrod would come seeking counsel on how to obtain sovereignty. He revealed to Nimrod the vision of four kingdoms that Daniel would later see. And told him that the descendants of Ashur, the children of Shem, would rule first.

After Nimrod died, his son Bel succeeded him in Babylon. After Bel came Ninus, who conquered Assyria and built the great city of Nineveh, which stretched thirty days' walking distance. Ninus defeated Zoroaster the Wise, who had inscribed seven sciences on fourteen pillars of brass and brick to protect them against flood and fire. Ninus burned those books of wisdom.

When Bel died, Ninus was so grief-stricken that he made an image in his father's likeness and called it "Bel." Anyone whom Ninus hated could be pardoned by approaching the image of Bel and supplicating it. Soon the whole world worshipped the god Bel, and variations appeared everywhere. Ba'al Pe'or, Ba'al Zebub. This, the chronicle claims, is how idol worship spread across the earth. In the forty-third year of Ninus's reign, Abraham was born, and on that very same day, the first Pharaoh began to rule in Egypt.

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Legends of the Jews, II. The Sons Of Jacob, Job And The PatriarchsLegends of the Jews

The Book of Job, of course, tells the story of a man who suffers immensely, testing his faith. But the Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, adds layers to this familiar narrative. It paints Job as exceptionally righteous, “the most pious Gentile that ever lived,” even calling him "the servant of God", a high honor indeed! But get this: he was also doubly related to Jacob, making him almost part of the family. He was both a grandson of Esau (Jacob’s brother) AND the son-in-law of Jacob, having married Dinah as his second wife.

So, why isn’t it "the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job"? What kept Job from reaching that ultimate level of recognition?

In legends, Job’s downfall was his lack of unwavering faith during his trials. He “murmured against God.” Had he remained steadfast, the honor of having his name joined to God’s in prayer would have been his. People would call upon "the God of Job" just as they call upon the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Pretty powerful stuff.

God, as the legends tell it, even remonstrated with Job. "Why didst thou murmur when suffering came upon thee?" He asks, in so many words. "Do you think you are better than Adam, who I punished with death for a single transgression, and he didn't complain? Are you greater than Abraham, whom I tested relentlessly, and who never murmured? Are you more worthy than Moses, who I denied entry into the Promised Land, and yet he accepted it silently? Or even Aaron, who experienced the tragic loss of his sons without complaint?"

Wow. Talk about putting things into perspective.

The contrast between Job and the Patriarchs is stark. As Ginzberg points out, Abraham, addressing God, said, "That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked." In contrast, Job exclaimed against God, "It is all one; therefore I say, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." Both spoke their minds, but their perspectives. And their fates, differed greatly. Abraham was rewarded, and Job. well, Job was punished, or at least, severely tested.

Job, convinced of his innocence, even dared to accuse God of injustice. As Ginzberg phrases it, Job had the audacity to say to God: "O Lord of the world. Thou createst the righteous and also the wicked. There is none to hinder, Thou canst do as seemeth good in Thy sight." In other words, "You made everything, so if things are bad, it's on you!"

His friends, of course, jumped in to defend God. "It is true, God hath created the yetzer hara (evil inclination)," they argued, "but He hath also given man the Torah as a remedy against it." The Torah, in this view, provides the tools to overcome our base impulses. Therefore, the wicked can't just blame God for their actions.

But why did Job go so far? Why these "extravagant utterances"? The legends suggest it was because Job didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. He only saw earthly rewards and punishments. Thus, he concluded that his suffering must be a mistake; God must have confused him with someone else.

God, in response, delivers a powerful, almost poetic rebuke, highlighting the intricate precision of the universe. "Many hairs have I created upon the head of man, yet each hair hath its own sac. Should I, then, have mistaken Job for another?" And so on, with rain drops, thunderbolts, gazelles, and hinds. The message is clear: The universe is meticulously crafted and maintained. Nothing is random. How could God possibly make such a fundamental mistake as to inflict suffering on the wrong person?

Even with Job’s harsh words, God wasn’t happy with his friends’ harsh judgment. After all, "A man may not be held responsible for what he does in his anguish," and Job’s suffering was immense.

So, what can we take away from this? Job's story reminds us that even the most righteous among us can falter in the face of extreme adversity. It's a story about faith, doubt, and the immense challenge of accepting what we don't understand. And perhaps, it’s a reminder that even when we feel like God has made a mistake, there might be a larger, incomprehensible plan at play. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a evidence of the importance of unwavering faith, even when the world seems to be falling apart.

Full source
Legends of the Jews, II. The Sons Of Jacob, Satan And JobLegends of the Jews

The story we know so well has a prologue, a hidden conflict that sets the stage for all of Job's suffering?

Our tale begins not with divine pronouncements, but with envy. Satan, or Ha-Satan, "the accuser," harbored a deep-seated resentment towards Job, a man whose life was a evidence of piety and righteousness. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, Satan held an old grudge.

Near Job's home stood an idol, worshipped by the local people. A fascinating thought occurs to Job: "Is this idol truly the creator of heaven and earth? How can I discover the truth?"

That night, a voice pierced through the darkness. "Jobab! Jobab!" it called, (Job, you see, is sometimes called Jobab in tradition). "Arise, and I will tell thee who he is whom thou desirest to know." The voice revealed that the idol was nothing more than a deceptive creation of the tempter himself, Satan.

Job, upon hearing this, prostrated himself and cried out, "O Lord, if this idol is the handiwork of the tempter, then grant that I may destroy it!" The text points out that none could hinder him, because he was the king of the land. Job, or Jobab, was in fact the king of Edom, also known as Uz, a place described as a breeding ground for wicked schemes against God.

The voice, identifying itself as an archangel, warned Job that destroying the idol would unleash Satan's wrath upon him, leading to immense suffering. But, the voice promised, if Job remained steadfast, God would transform his troubles into joy, making his name celebrated for generations and granting him a share in the resurrection to eternal life. What would you do?

Job's response is immediate and unwavering. "Out of love of God, I am ready to endure all things unto the day of my death. I will shrink back from naught." Fueled by this devotion, Job, accompanied by fifty men, destroyed the idol. Knowing Satan wouldn't be far behind, he instructed his guards to deny access to everyone, then retreated to his chambers.

As expected, Satan arrived disguised as a beggar, demanding to speak with Job. The guards, following orders, refused him entry. The "beggar" then asked the guard to plead with Job for a piece of bread. Job, recognizing Satan's deception, sent a message: "Do not expect to eat of my bread, for it is prohibited unto thee," and instructed the guard to give Satan a piece of burnt bread.

The servant, ashamed to offer such meager fare, replaced it with a good piece of bread. But Satan, ever perceptive, knew the servant had disobeyed. He revealed the deception and insisted on receiving the burnt bread, repeating Job's exact words. In response, Satan declared, "As the bread is burnt, so I will disfigure thy body." Job's reply? A stoic acceptance: "Do as thou desirest, and execute thy plan. As for me, I am ready to suffer whatever thou bringest down upon me."

Frustrated, Satan then turned to God, seeking permission to test Job. the verse says in Legends of the Jews, Satan essentially argued that Job's piety was conditional, dependent on his comfortable life. He said, "I went to and fro in the earth, and walked up and down in it, and I saw no man as pious as Abraham. Thou didst promise him the whole land of Palestine, and yet he did not take it in ill part that he had not so much as a burial-place for Sarah. As for Job, it is true, I found none that loveth Thee as he does, but if Thou wilt put him into my hand, I shall succeed in turning his heart away from Thee."

God, while acknowledging Job's unparalleled righteousness, ultimately granted Satan power over Job's possessions. The text notes that this day of accusation fell on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a day when human deeds are judged before God.

So, there it is: the prelude to Job's trials. A story of envy, devotion, and a challenge to the very nature of faith. Before the boils, the lost children, and the agonizing questions, there was a king who chose God over comfort, knowing full well the price he might have to pay. It forces us to ask ourselves: What idols do we protect, and what price are we willing to pay for our beliefs? And, perhaps most importantly, what does true faith really look like in the face of unimaginable suffering?

Full source
Legends of the Jews 2:228-233Legends of the Jews

The familiar story centers on Job. It opens with a description so idyllic it almost feels unreal. "There was a man in the land of Uz," the Book of Job tells us. A man named…Job. And this wasn’t just any man. (Job 1:1)

He wasn’t just morally sound, either. Job was loaded! Seven sons, three daughters, plus thousands of sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys. The Bible tells us, "That man was wealthier than anyone in the East." (Job 1:3)

Job wasn’t just about accumulating wealth. He cared about his family's spiritual well-being. His sons would throw these awesome feasts, inviting their sisters to join in the fun. But Job, ever the conscientious father, worried. Maybe in all that revelry, his kids might have, you know, slipped up. Maybe they "sinned and blasphemed God in their thoughts." (Job 1:5)

So, what does he do? Job gets up early every morning and offers burnt offerings – korbanot (a sacrificial offering) (sacrificial offerings) in Hebrew – for each of his children. Just in case. "This is what Job always used to do," the text emphasizes. (Job 1:5) A true mensch, a good person.

Everything seems perfect. A righteous man, a loving family, overflowing prosperity. But as we know, the story doesn't end there. Not even close. And what happens next involves a rather unsettling celestial conversation…one that will change Job's life forever.

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