Nahshon

Lunette depicting Nahshon in the Sistine Chapel.

In the Hebrew Bible, Nahshon (Hebrew: נַחְשׁוֹן Naḥšon) was a tribal leader of the Judahites during the wilderness wanderings of the Book of Numbers. In the King James Version, the name is spelled Naashon,[1] and is within modern Rabbinical contexts often transliterated as Nachshon.

According to a Jewish Midrash, he was the person who initiated the Hebrews' passage through the Red Sea, by walking in head-deep until the sea parted.

  1. ^ Thomas Kelly Cheyne (1901) [1899]. "Nahshon". In T. K. Cheyne; J. Sutherland Black (eds.). Encyclopaedia Biblica: A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political, and Religious History, the Archaeology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible. Vol. 3, L–P. New York: The Macmillan Company.