NUN (j:3 ‘fish,’ in 1 Ch 77 ji: Non, LXX Νανή [possibly a puueve error in transcription, NATH for NATN], hence Nave of Sir 46! AV).—The father of Joshua, the successor of Moses, Ex 33", Nu 11%, Jos 1) ete. On the probability that Nun is a clan rather than a personal name, and on its bearing on totemism, see Gray, Heb. Prop. Names, pp. 96, 102; cf. also W. R. Smith, Kinship, p. 221 f.
NURSE (npyo méneketh, nj>k ’Omeneth, τροφός). —1. The term méneketh (root [p3) ‘suck’) desig- nated a foster-mother. Deborah had been aint to Rebekah, and the maternal devotion was maintained throughout her life, Gn 24° 35%. By Miriam’s readiness of resource the mother of Moses became his appointed nurse, Ex 27. The same meaning of ‘ nurse’ occurs in 2 K 11?, Is 493; cf. the use of τροφός in 1 Th 97, and τροφοφορεῖν in Dt 1%. In the East a child is usually nursed till over two years of age. 2. ’Omeneth (root [j>x] ‘ con- firm,’ ‘support’) is a more general term applying to any female attendant in charge of children. Thus Naomi became nurse to Obed (Ru 4"), and Mephibosheth was five years old when he fell from the arms of his nurse (‘Omeneth) 2S 44.
3. The ‘nursing-father’ (jok Nu 11%, Is 49%) would be found only in families of rank and wealth. Among the Emirs or leading families of the Lebanon, one of the dependants, usually a po relative, is appointed to this office. He
ecomes the constant companion, playmate, and guardian of the heir, carrying him when tired, and giving him later his first lessons in horse- manship and manly sports. In old age his re- lationship to the family is not forgotten, and care is taken that he shall not suffer want. In Pref. to AV the translators (apparently regardless of the difference between the nursing-father and the nursing-mother) say: ‘And lastly, that the Church be sufliciently provided for, is so agreeable to good reason and conscience, that those mothers are holder to be lesse cruell, that kill their children as soone as they are borne, then those noursing fathers and mothers (wheresoever they be) that withdraw from them who hang upon their breasts (and upun whose breasts againe themselves doe hange to receive the spirituall and sincere milke of the word) livelyhood and support fit for their estates.’ And Thomas Fuller is yet bolder when he says: ‘He set before the King the hainousnesse of sacrilodge ; how great
574 NURTURE a sinne it was when Princes, who should be nurs- ing-fathers and suckle the Church, shall suck from it’ (Holy Warre, ii. δ, p. 49).
For the ’éménim who acted as tutors (2 K 10) δ, ef. Est 97), see EDUCATION, 1. G. M. MACKIE.
NURTURE.—The verb to nurture occurs occa- sionally in Sirach as the translation of παιδεύω (Sir 183 21% 298 31° 40%). It is also found in 2Es 813 ‘Thou . . . nurturedst it in thy law’ (erudisti eum in lege tua). The subst. is found in Wis 3" and Eph 6* as the tr. of παιδεία, as well as in Sir 9910 ‘want of nurture,’ Gr. ἀπαι- Sevela. Now both in LXX and NT παιδεία and παιδεύω describe, not ‘nurture’ in the modern use of that word, but training, especially such training or discipline as involves restraint and even chastisement. Chastise and chastening or chastisement are often the best translation, as in He 195. 1.10. In Lk 9316. the verb is used of the scourging of a malefactor : it is rendered ‘chastise’ in EV, nthe 16th cent. ‘ nurture’ was an excellent equivalent for παιδεύω and παιδεία, as it contained the idea of training by means of chastisement or tribulation. Thus Dt 85 Tind. ‘ As a man nurtereth his sonne, even so the Lorde thy God nurtereth the’ (AV and RV ‘chasteneth’) ; Dt 2118 Tind. ‘ Yf any man have a sonne that is stuburne and dis- obedient that he will not herken unto the voyce of his father and voyce of his mother, and they have taught him nurture’; He 12” Tind. ‘And they verely for a feaue dayes nurtred us after their awne pleasure’; 1 K 12" Cov. ‘ My father correcte you with scourges, but I Hee nourtoure you with scorpions’; Ps 94° Cov. ‘He that nurtureth the Heithen, and teacheth a man knowledge, shal not he punysh ?’ (see Driver’s note on this passage in Paral. Psalter, p. 477). Rutherford is fond of the word and illustrates its meaning in his day admir- ably: thus, Letters, No. xeviii. ‘I get my meat from Christ with nurture, for seven times a-day I am lifted up and casten down’; No. Ixx. ‘ You have had your own large share of troubles, and a double portion ; but it saith your Father counteth Mr a bastard; full-begotten bairns are nur- tured.’
Shaks. uses the word twice, and in both places in the sense of the result of training: Tempest, Iv. i. 189—
‘A born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick’;
As You Like It, τι. vii. 97—
* Yet am I inland bred And know some nurture.’
This is the meaning in Sir 31} and 40”, where AV has ‘well-nurtured,’ RV ‘ well-mannered’ and ‘ well-instructed’: the Gr. is πεπαιδευμένος. J. HASTINGS.
NUTS.—The equivalent of two Heb. words— 1. o> botnim, τερέβινθοι, terebinthi. The (unused) sing., [55 bdten, of this is perhaps the cognate of the Arab. butm, the n being substituted for the m. This word in Arab. is generic for terebinth. Its