Greek Roots · letter 13 of 24

Nu

The letter of the law — and of the word that became a shoe brand.

How the shape crossed the sea

Phoenician · c. 1000–800 BC

Phoenician nun — a snake, or a fish.

Archaic Greek · c. 750–500 BC

A shorter zigzag than mu, and leaning — the two were easy to confuse.

The classical capital · the New Testament's own letters

Every New Testament manuscript was written in capitals like this one — no lower case, and no spaces between the words.

The Phoenician drawing is the same one the Hebrew hall uses for that letter — at this date the two scripts were one alphabet in two neighbouring hands. The archaic Greek form is simplified from published hand-copies of the early inscriptions, not a facsimile of any single stone: early Greek scribes varied wildly, and wrote right to left as readily as left to right.

Sounds like

N, as in English.

Written n in scholarly books.

Its number

it is letter 13 — the gap is the lost letters, which kept their numbers

Its name means

snake, fish (from nun)

in Phoenician, not in Greek

Borrowed from

Phoenician nun

Well established

Nomos is “law,” and it is one of the hardest words in the New Testament, because Paul uses it for at least four things: the law of Moses, the Old Testament as a whole, a principle at work in a person, and law in general. Reading Romans without noticing which one is meant is the classic way to get lost in it.

The other great nu word is nikaō, to conquer. It is the word behind the goddess Nike and the word behind Revelation's refrain: to the one who overcomes.

Where the New Testament uses this letter

“To him that overcometh”

Seven times in Revelation 2-3 the letters to the churches end with a promise attached to the same verb: to the one who conquers. It is the same word a Greek would use of an athlete or a general, and John gives it to ordinary congregations under pressure.

The night is far spent

Nyx, night, is one of the New Testament's steady images for the present age — a darkness with a known end. Paul, John and Peter all use it that way, and Revelation ends by removing it: there shall be no night there.

Words that begin here

νόμος

nomos — law

192 occurrences, and at least four distinct senses in Paul alone.

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νικάω

nikaō — to conquer, overcome

The verb behind Revelation's seven promises — and behind the goddess Nike.

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νεφέλη

nephelē — cloud

The vehicle of the Son of Man's coming, and the pillar that led Israel.

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νύξ

nyx — night

The age that ends. “There shall be no night there.”

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