Genesis 10:9
And he was a stout hunter before the Lord. Hence came a proverb: Even as Nemrod the stout hunter before the Lord.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et erat robustus venator coram Domino. Ob hoc exivit proverbium : Quasi Nemrod robustus venator coram Domino.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οὗτος ἦν γίγας κυνηγὸς ἐναντίον Κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ· διὰ τοῦτο ἐροῦσιν Ὡς Νεβρὼδ γίγας κυνηγὸς ἐναντίον Κυρίου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הֽוּא הָיָ֥ה גִבֹּֽר צַ֖יִד לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה עַל כֵּן֙ יֵֽאָמַ֔ר כְּנִמְרֹ֛ד גִּבּ֥וֹר צַ֖יִד לִפְנֵ֥י יְהוָֽה
Haydock's commentary
A stout hunter. Not of beasts, but of men; whom by violence and tyranny he brought under his dominion. And such he was, not only in the opinion of men, but before the Lord; that is, in his sight who cannot be deceived. (Challoner)
The Septuagint call him a giant; that is, a violent man. According to Josephus, he stirred up men to rebel against the Lord, maintaining that all their happiness must come from themselves, &c., Antiquities i. 4. Thus he broached the first heresy after the deluge. (Worthington)
He seems to have been the same as Bel, father of Ninus, and the author of idolatry. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Hippolytus The Refutation of All Heresies, Chapter XI
Now, he says, the stars are the gods of destruction, which impose upon existent things the necessity of alterable generation. These, he says, Moses denominated serpents of the wilderness, which gnaw and utterly ruin those who imagined that they had crossed the Red Sea. To those, then, he says, who of the children of Israel were bitten in the wilderness, Moses exhibited the real and perfect serpent; and they who believed on this serpent were not bitten in the wilderness, that is, (were not assailed) by (evil) powers. No one therefore, he says, is there who is able to save and deliver those that come forth from Egypt, that is, from the body and from this world, unless alone the serpent that is perfect and replete with fulness. Upon this (serpent), he says, he who fixes his hope is not destroyed by the snakes of the wilderness, that is, by the gods of generation. …