Nun: The Father Named in Every Mention of Joshua

A Man Known by His Son

Nun (נוּן) belongs to the era of Egypt and the wilderness, placed at around 1706 BC to 1451 BC on Ussher's chronology (1650). He was of the tribe of Ephraim, the son of Elishama, and the father of Joshua (1 Chronicles 7:27). That single verse of genealogy gives the whole of his line as Scripture records it: "Nun his son, and Joshua his son." He stands in the record as a link, one name between a father and a son, and the son is the one the rest of the Bible follows.

Thirty Verses, and Not One of Them His Own

Nun's name occurs in thirty verses spread across eight books: Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles and Nehemiah. That is a wide footprint, wider than many men who have whole chapters devoted to them. Yet it is worth saying plainly what kind of footprint it is. Apart from the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 7:27, every one of those mentions is a patronymic. Nun is named because Joshua is named. He appears as "Joshua the son of Nun," and never once as an actor in his own right.

The first mention comes in Exodus 33:11, in the wilderness generation. From there the name runs through Numbers eleven times (Numbers 11:28; 13:8; 13:16; 14:6; 14:30; 14:38; 26:65; 27:18; 32:12; 32:28; 34:17), through Deuteronomy four times, ten times in the book of Joshua, and then in later mentions in Judges 2:8, 1 Kings 16:34 and finally Nehemiah 8:17. Nun's name outlives him by centuries in the text, carried forward every time a writer needed to say precisely which Joshua he meant.

What the Verses Actually Say

Since the mentions are patronymic, the way to read Nun is to read what is said around his name. Moses tells Israel, "Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it" (Deuteronomy 1:38). The son of Nun is the one who will bring the people into their inheritance.

The commissioning follows: "He commissioned Joshua the son of Nun, and said, 'Be strong and courageous; for you shall bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore to them. I will be with you'" (Deuteronomy 31:23). Then, when Moses spoke the words of the song, Nun's son stood beside him: "Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun" (Deuteronomy 32:44).

And after Moses, the verdict: "Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. The children of Israel listened to him, and did as Yahweh commanded Moses" (Deuteronomy 34:9).

Generations later, in the days of the kings, the name still carried authority. When Jericho was rebuilt, the writer records that it happened "according to Yahweh's word, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun" (1 Kings 16:34). A word spoken by the son of Nun was still being reckoned with long after the man who first bore the name was gone.

No Sin, and No Righteousness, Recorded

Honesty requires saying that Scripture records no failure of Nun, and equally no act of faith. He is not praised. He is not blamed. He is not shown believing, obeying, doubting or rebelling. There is no scene in which he stands. Anyone who tells you what kind of man Nun was, what he taught his son, or how he raised him in Egypt, is telling you something the Bible does not say. The text gives us his name, his tribe, his father and his son, and stops there.

What We Do Not Know

We do not know when Nun was born or when he died. We do not know whether he came out of Egypt or died there. We do not know whether he had other children, or the name of his wife. We do not know a single word he spoke, because Scripture preserves none. We do not know whether he lived to see his son commissioned. The book that names him thirty times never once turns to look at him.

The Weight of a Name

There is something worth sitting with here. Nun's whole presence in Scripture is the presence of a father whose name was worth attaching to his son, again and again, across eight books and many centuries. He was not the man who stood before Moses, and not the man who led Israel into the land. He was the man the leader came from. The Bible offers no account of his character, but it does keep saying his name, and the saying of it is the only monument he has. For readers who will leave behind no chapter of their own, that is not a small thing to have noticed.

No New Testament passage is listed for Nun in the record before us, and so this study ends where the text itself leaves him: a name spoken thirty times, and never explained.