Nun (, 'Perpetuity'), in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Tribe of Ephraim According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim (, ''ʾEp̄rayim,'' in Pausa, pausa: , ''ʾEp̄rāyim'') was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Manasseh, together with Ephraim, formed the Tribe of Joseph. It is one of the Ten L ...

, grandson of Ammihud, son of Elishama, and father of

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

().

Biblical context

Nun grew up in and may have lived his entire life in the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

' Egyptian captivity, where the

Egyptians Egyptians (, ; , ; ) are an ethnic group native to the Nile, Nile Valley in Egypt. Egyptian identity is closely tied to Geography of Egypt, geography. The population is concentrated in the Nile Valley, a small strip of cultivable land stretchi ...

"made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the field" (). In

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

, "

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

" means "fish". Thus the

Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...

tells: " e son of him whose name was as the name of a fish would lead them he Israelitesinto the land" (

Genesis Rabba Genesis Rabbah (, also known as Bereshit Rabbah and abbreviated as GenR) is a religious text from Judaism's classical period, probably written between 300 and 500 CE with some later additions. It is an expository midrash comprising a collection of ...

97:3).

Traditional tomb

A Jewish tradition places Nun's tomb near that of his son Joshua who, according to , is buried in Timnat Serah whereas in it is mentioned as Timnath-heres. The similarly named Israeli village of Kifl Hares, located northwest of Ariel in

Samaria Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...

(Northern

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

), is now home to both tombs.

References

{{Reflist Books of Chronicles people Egypt in the Hebrew Bible