When thus we find a custom that is clearly founded on a form of speech that characteristically distinguished the region where Nimrod's power was wielded, used in so many different countries far removed from one another, where no such form of speech was used in ordinary life, we may be sure that such a custom was not the result of mere accident, but that it indicates the wide-spread diffusion of an influence that went forth in all directions from Babylon, from the time that Nimrod first "began to be mighty on the earth."
There was another way in which Nimrod's power was symbolised besides by the "horn." A synonym for Gheber, "The mighty one," was "Abir," while "Aber" also signified a "wing." Nimrod, as Head and Captain of those men of war, by whom he surrounded himself, and who were the instruments of establishing his power, was "Baal-aberin," "Lord of the mighty ones." But "Baal-abirin" (pronounced nearly in the same way) signified "The winged one," * and therefore in symbol he was represented, not only as a horned bull, but as at once a horned and winged bull--as showing not merely that he was mighty himself, but that he had mighty ones under his command, who were ever ready to carry his will into effect, and to put down all opposition to his power; and to shadow forth the vast extent of his might, he was represented with great and wide-expanding wings. * This is according to a peculiar Oriental idiom, of which there are many examples. Thus, Baal-aph, "lord of wrath," signifies "an angry man"; Baal-lashon, "lord of tongue," "an eloquent man"; Baal-hatsim, "lord of arrows," "an archer"; and in like manner, Baal-aberin, "lord of wings," signifies "winged one."
To this mode of representing the mighty kings of Babylon and Assyria, who imitated Nimrod and his successors, there is manifest allusion in Isaiah 8:6-8 "Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son; now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and mighty, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his banks. And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even unto the neck; and the STRETCHING OUT OF HIS WINGS shall FILL the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel." When we look at such figures, with their great extent of expanded wing, as symbolising an Assyrian king, what a vividness and force does it give to the inspired language of the prophet! And how clear is it, also, that the stretching forth of the Assyrian monarch's WINGS, that was to "fill the breadth of Immanuel's land," has that very symbolic meaning to which I have referred--viz., the overspreading of the land by his "mighty ones," or hosts of armed men, that the king of Babylon was to bring with him in his overflowing invasion! The knowledge of the way in which the Assyrian monarchs were represented, and of the meaning of that representation, gives additional force to the story of the dream of Cyrus the Great, as told by Herodotus. Cyrus, says the historian, dreamt that he saw the son of one of his princes, who was at the time in a distant province, with two great "wings on his shoulders, the one of which overshadowed Asia, and the other Europe," from which he immediately concluded that he was organising rebellion against him. The symbols of the Babylonians, whose capital Cyrus had taken, and to whose power he had succeeded, were entirely familiar to him; and if the "wings" were the symbols of sovereign power, and the possession of them implied the lordship over the might, or the armies of the empire, it is easy to see how very naturally any suspicions of disloyalty affecting the individual in question might take shape in the manner related, in the dreams of him who might harbour these suspicions.