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Nergal

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

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Concordances
Nave Topical Bible
• Nergal-Sharezer
• Nergal
Dictionaries
American Tract Society
• Nergal
Easton's Bible Dictionary
• Nergal-Sharezer
• Nergal
Fausset Bible Dictionary
• Nergal-Sharezer
• Nergal
Holman Bible Dictionary
• Nergal-Sharezer
• Nergal
Hitchcock Bible Names
• Nergal-Sharezer
• Nergal
Hastings' BibleDictionary
• Nergal-Sharezer
• Nergal
Morrish Bible Dictionary
• Nergal
Hawker's Poor Man's Dictionary
• Nergal
People's Bible Dictionary
• Nergal
Smith Bible Dictionary
• Nergal-sharezer
• Nergal
Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• Nergal
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
• Nergal
• Nergal-Sharezer
Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia
• Nergal
• Nergal-Sharezer
McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
• Nergal
• Nergal-Sharezer
The Jewish Encyclopedia
• Nergal
Lexicons
• נֵרְגַל
• נֵרְגַל שַׂר־אֶצֶר

A Hamite name ("great hero".) Some of the Assyrian kings pretended descent from him. In the monuments he is called "the great brother," "the storm ruler," "king of battle," "the strong begetter"; "god of the chase," which is his special attribute. Nimrod deified, "the mighty hunter before the Lord," from whom naturally the kings of Babylon and Nineveh would claim descent. Cutha or Tiggaba (Nimrod's city in Arab tradition) is in the inscriptions especially dedicated to him. In accurate conformity with this the men of Cutha (2 Kings 17:30) planted by the Assyrian king as colonists in Samaria "made Nergal their god."

Nergal appears in the compound Nergal-sharezer (Jeremiah 39:3; Jeremiah 39:13). A human headed lion with eagles' wings was his symbol. His Semitic name Aria (which when transposed is Νir ) means "lion"; Greek Ares; Mars is his planet. Nerig is still its Mendaean name, and the Mendaeans call the third day of the week from him. The lion as lord of the forest was a fit symbol of the god of the chase. Tiglath Pileser (1150 B.C.) attributes to his gift the arrows wherewith he slew wild beasts; so Assur-dani-pal or Sardanapalus. Pul sacrificed to Nergal in Cutha, and Sennacherib built a temple to him in Tarbisa near Nineveh.