No name is more wondrous, more amazing, more astounding, or more fascinating than the name “Jesus”! Recently I’ve been reacquainted with Jesus not as a brand new name announced in lowly Nazareth but as the rebirth of an ancient name, “Joshua,” for that is its meaning in Greek. The Greek Septuagint translation of “Joshua” son of Nun, successor to Moses to lead the people into the Promised Land, is identical to “Jesus” of the New Testament.
It was the prophet Moses who took Joshua’s name given him at birth, “Hoshea” (salvation), and prefixed it with “Yah” to create a new name: “Yah is salvation” (Num 13:16). Ed Miller’s epic poem “His Name is Jesus” word crafts this so beautifully:
So Moses weaved with grace and skill,
(The larger meaning to fulfill)
“Jehovah” with the “son of Nun,”
And thus the two names were made one.
Jehovah’s prefix, (blessed and graced)
Before Hoshea’s name was placed;
Thus “Joshua” was given birth;
A special name had come to Earth!
No name displayed the Lord like his;
Not “what He’s done” but “who He is”!
Thus, Moses coined prophetically,
A name to live in history.
Intriguingly, Joshua is frequently called “Joshua son of Nun.” By contrast, Moses was simply called Moses, not “Moses son of Amram.” And it wasn’t like there were all these other Joshuas running around that one had to qualify “son of Nun” to know which one. This Joshua was famous and renowned in Israel. Yet 29 times Joshua is referred to as the son of Nun. The reason for this, I believe, is in the significance of the name Nun.
I love the meaning of Nun! Nun (pronounced “noon” in Hebrew) means to increase or to multiply by propagating by shoots. Strawberries are a good example. Strawberry plants reproduce through “runners” that extend out several inches from the main plant, take root in the soil, and produce new plants called “daughter plants.” Because of this repetitive propagation, nun can also mean perpetual, as it does in Psalm 72:17: “May his name endure forever, his fame continue [nun] as long as the sun!”
In late Hebrew nun came to mean fish (although it isn’t used that way in the Hebrew Bible). The seas filled with fish makes sense in light of multiplication through reproduction. This application is reminiscent of God’s very first blessing on the fifth day. “And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth’” (Gen 1:22).
Through the mother eagle-like hovering, incubating Spirit of God, the chaos waters, the “deep,” became a perfect environment for fish to multiply. These chaos waters filled with darkness, through later revelation, parallels the human heart. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2Co 4:6). According to Paul here, that dark deep on day one of creation is a picture of the chaotic, unstable, darkened hearts of mankind.
God’s blessing on the fish to multiply in those chaos waters was a preview of His blessing on the chaos waters that depicted man’s heart. God created man for His name to multiply in! He can work with any deadness, darkness and deformity in you, me or anybody to make this name Jesus to thrive and prosper into the pristine, unadulterated image of God! Thus Joshua son of Nun, this Jesus son of multiplication, is a prophesy of our hearts to be blessed with even more abundant life of Jesus than the seas filled with perpetually multiplying fish. The best estimates (according to my quick Internet search) place the number of fish in the ocean at 3,500,000,000,000 (three and a half trillion)! I’d say God’s blessing is faring pretty well, wouldn’t you?
Just a quick note on how son is used in the Bible. Its obvious implication is biological relationship. So Joshua son of Nun simply refers to Nun as Joshua’s biological father. But son can also mean character or animating principle of what one is like. For instance, a generous Levite named Joseph was nicknamed Barnabas, “son of encouragement,” by the apostles (Acts 4:36). Son (bar) here speaks of him as being characterized by encouragement. In Zechariah’s vision of two branches of an olive tree supplying oil into a gold lampstand, the branches are explained like this: “These are the two anointed ones [literally, “sons of new oil”]” (Zec 4:14). Sons here characterize their essence, their reality, as new oil. So in the shadow, Joshua is the son of his father, Nun. In the fulfilled reality, Jesus is the son of multiplication, which defines His essence, who He is!
So when we look back into its identification with Joshua son of Nun, this name “Jesus” is the son of Nun—multiplication and propagation. “Jesus” is rooted in His Father’s generous nature, ever ready to propagate the Name from heart to heart to heart. God desires to multiply this Name in all humanity far exceedingly more than the fish teeming in the oceans and lakes and rivers. “Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (or fish!).
In the last blog series about the cleansed leper, I’d shared my aha moments of olive oil as šemen, a symbol of all the richness, fullness and fatness of the produce of Canaan’s abundance—“a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing” (Deut 8:7-9). This šemen picturing all this plenitude is radically manifested in the Holy Spirit’s ministry enabling us to enjoy Christ’s fullness.
The Lord is expanding the walls of the box I’ve put Him in. I often limit the Unlimited One. I don’t want to, but I do. I don’t think He’s as generous as He says He is. Yes, He will answer some of my prayers, but not that many. This revelation of Jesus as the son of Nun combined with the Holy Spirit as šemen has been demolishing my low views about God at work in the world, particularly through me. In my mind’s eye I can see four walls like a shoebox depicting how I’ve imagined God’s generosity to me and through me. I now see where He wants to radically expand all four of these walls way outward so that He can be glorified more as He deserves. He wants to do that for you, too. It’s not my worthiness or deservingness. It’s Jesus’ blood that has cleansed this leper, mercifully qualifying me to enjoy the purchased inheritance and participate with Him in His kingdom mission on earth.
So I have a growing expectation of God answering prayers more profusely, more radically. Nothing is too hard for Him and He likes to be generous. I have an increased expectation of the Spirit working more lavishly through me to expand His kingdom around me. He is the šemen God. “Jesus” is the Father’s hand-picked name rooted in His generous nature, ever propagating, always multiplying that Name in the dark depths of all that I am and from heart to heart to heart.
I just want to speak the name of Jesus
Over every heart and every mind
‘Cause I know there is peace within Your presence
I speak Jesus
(“I Speak Jesus” by Charity Gayle)
May You be all that You have revealed Yourself to be in us, to us, and through us, now and forever. May Your name endure forever, Your fame continue as long as the sun! Amen!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 