Genesis 10:8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Cush begat Nimrod, &c.— Nimrod's impiety and apostacy are here marked out, as well as his tyranny and domination. The word Nimrod signifies an apostate or rebel. The word rendered hunter, ציד tzaid, is used as well for catching, or ensnaring souls, as for catching game. See Ezekiel 18:20-21. Great oppressors also are called hunters, Jeremiah 16:16. And the phrase, before the Lord, may signify, his opposition to the Lord, his own desertion of the divine presence and regard, as well as his endeavours to seduce others from it. So that, I conceive, he is called thus mighty, because of the tyrannical domination which he exercised over the men of his times; disregarding the worship and reverence of God, and totally apostatizing from it, oppressing and subjugating men to himself, as hunters do the wild beasts they have taken. See Lamentations 3:52. The versions confirm this interpretation: the LXX has it, "he began to be a giant hunter against the Lord God." The Arabic has it, "he was a terrible giant before the Lord." The Syriac, "he was a giant warrior before, or against, the Lord." In which places the word giant has probably a reference to the race of giants and their enormities before the flood; Nimrod having acted in the same spirit and manner as they had done before.