Genesis 8-11

Reading for Friday January 3, 2020
Genesis 8-11
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This jumped out at me:
​Genesis 10: 8-9
Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord."
Genesis 11: 4
"Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves,

My take:
     The Tower of Babel is a well-known children's Bible story.  As a child (and beyond), I didn't understand it.  When it says that Nimrod was the first on earth to be a mighty man, and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, these sound like good things to be.  However, the problem is in the word "before".  A little research in non-biblical history books reveals that Nimrod was a man who thought he was better than God.  Nimrod was directing the building of a tower, not to reach up to God, but to demonstrate the lack of a need for God.  The word "before" is not used spatially as in the "presence of", but rather it is used as a point of order as in "that which comes first".  Nimrod taught his people that he was God.  My understanding is that every false religion on earth can be traced back to Nimrod.  In the Bible, many times we read of baal worship.  Over time, the use of the word baal has been dropped, but the term simply means lord.  Baal worship is the putting of anything or anyone "before" God.  Thus we have the first commandment.