The Cross to the Crown - Elohim's Letter - NUN

God's Letter — The Nun (Bent Form)

The Cross to the Crown Series, Letter Fourteen (Part One)

May 3, 2023 — Iyar 12, 5783

Thank you for joining us. My name is Chadwick Harvey. You are with Faithful Performance. Tonight we study the first form of the Hebrew letter Nun — the bent, or servant, form. We are on Day 25 of the Omer count, the halfway point of the fifty-day journey from First Fruits to Shavuot, and this letter is a gift for exactly where we are on that journey. The Nun is the fourteenth letter of the aleph-bet with a numerical value of fifty — and both of those numbers are woven directly into the season we are in. Two weeks from now we will cover the final form of the Nun, when the bent servant stands upright. Tonight belongs to the servant who bends.

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OPENING SCRIPTURE — PHILIPPIANS 2:5-8

We begin with Philippians 2:5-8: in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Messiah Yeshua — who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage. Rather, He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death — even death on the cross.

That is the bent Nun. That shape of the letter — bent, bowed, stooped to serve — is Yeshua at the cross. It is the ultimate expression of what this letter means, and we will build everything tonight on top of that foundation.

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THE NUN: THE FOURTEENTH LETTER, NUMERICAL VALUE OF FIFTY

The Nun is the fourteenth letter of the aleph-bet, and it has a numerical value of fifty. Both numbers are significant.

Fourteen is seven multiplied by two. Seven represents spiritual perfection, so fourteen is a double portion of spiritual perfection. It also carries the number of the Incarnation — two — within it, pointing to the second person of the Holy Trinity. Matthew recorded the genealogy of Yeshua in intentional, ordained sets of fourteen — from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian exile, and from the exile to Yeshua — three groups of fourteen generations, a triple double portion of spiritual perfection built into the very lineage of the Messiah. He is the Bet of creation — letter number two — multiplied by the perfection of seven.

Fifty is the number of Jubilee, freedom, liberty, salvation, fullness of life, and rest. That number runs everywhere at this season of the year. We are counting fifty days from the Feast of First Fruits to Shavuot — the same fifty days Israel walked from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, when the Torah was given in Exodus 19-20. Fifteen hundred years later the Holy Spirit was poured out on the identical day in Acts 2. Both colossal events happened on the fiftieth day. The number fifty also governs the Jubilee year: seven times seven years — forty-nine — and then the fiftieth year is consecrated as a year of Jubilee, when liberty is proclaimed throughout the land and every person returns to his possession and his family. Leviticus 25:8-17 establishes it in detail. The double seven of the Omer count and the double seven of the Jubilee cycle both point to the same reality: freedom and rest in Yeshua, who is our Jubilee.

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YESHUA PROCLAIMED THE JUBILEE: LUKE 4 AND ISAIAH 61

One of the most revealing moments in the gospel accounts is found in Luke 4:16-22. In His hometown of Nazareth, as was His custom, Yeshua went into the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. He was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and found the place where it is written: the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and said: today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

When you go to Isaiah 61 and read what He was quoting, you discover that He stopped mid-sentence. The text continues: and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn. He closed the scroll before He read those words. One comma separates the first coming and the second coming. At His first coming Yeshua came as the acceptable year of the Lord — grace, liberty, healing, freedom. The day of vengeance He left unread, because that day belongs to His return. We have to be careful readers of the prophets: one comma can separate two thousand years. He told His listeners by what He chose not to say exactly as much as by what He said.

There is also a detail of the calendar here that is remarkable. The forty days Yeshua was tempted in the desert began on the first of Elul — the month of repentance — and ended on Tishri 10, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. That is the same forty-day pattern as Moses receiving the second tablets on the mountain, the same pattern as Jonah calling Nineveh to repentance. And Yeshua began His public ministry on the Jubilee year, on Yom Kippur — the day on which the Jubilee trumpet sounds in Leviticus 25, when liberty is proclaimed throughout all the land. He proclaimed it by opening that scroll in Nazareth. He is the Jubilee.

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THE PICTOGRAPH: THE SEED

Every Hebrew letter has a pictograph — the ancient form Moses would have written. The pictograph of the Nun is a seed. A seed represents life and activity, and those two things perfectly describe Yeshua. He is the seed of Genesis 3:15 — the seed of the woman who will crush the Serpent's head. He is the seed of the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis 15 and 17, and the seed of the Davidic Covenant in Second Samuel 7. That is why Matthew began his genealogy with the son of David, the son of Abraham — he was establishing, for every Jewish reader, that this is the one seed, the pure royal lineage from Shem to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to David to Yeshua. The seed of activity and eternal life.

The process of a seed also speaks of new birth. A seed goes into the ground, appears dead, and then springs up into new life. That is what Yeshua did at His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection — and it is what He promises to everyone who believes in Him: a new birth to everlasting life.

In Matthew 13, the parable of the sower, Yeshua gives us four kinds of seed. The first falls by the wayside and the birds devour it. The second falls on stony ground, springs up quickly, but has no root and withers when the sun scorches it. The third falls among thorns, which choke it. The fourth falls on good ground and yields a crop — some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Yeshua explains that the one who has no root falls away when tribulation or persecution comes, because there is no depth to his understanding. The one choked by thorns is overcome by the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. But the one on good ground hears the word, understands it, and bears lasting fruit. We are seed throwers. It is not our job to determine which ground it falls on — that belongs to the Holy Spirit. Our job is to graze in the field and throw seed continuously, sharing the true good news of Yeshua everywhere we go.

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THE CONSTRUCTION: THE BENT VAV AND THE ZAYIN

The classical Hebrew script of the Nun is constructed of a bent Vav with a crown like a Zayin. That description is everything. The Vav is the connector between heaven and earth — the Son of Man, letter number six. Bent, with a sword and a crown. That is Yeshua at His first coming: the servant who stoops, humbles Himself, and dies. And then, in the final form of the Nun — which we will study in two weeks — that bent figure stands upright, exalted, coming with the sword. First coming and second coming, both encoded in the shape of a single letter. What is written in the Hebrew is: the one who is faithful and humble before YHWH will be fruitful and will be rewarded by standing upright on the Day of Yeshua's judgment. Bend now. Be exalted in due time.

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YESHUA AS THE BENT NUN

The prophet Isaiah gave us the clearest portrait of Yeshua as the bent Nun, the suffering servant, in Isaiah 53. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. There was no beauty in Him that men should desire. He was despised and rejected. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities — the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. A nation could not have done that for mankind — it had to be one individual, and there has only ever been one individual who could. He is the only one.

Psalm 22 is the crucifixion psalm. When Yeshua cried from the cross — my God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? — He was not expressing abandonment. He was citing a scripture. Without chapter divisions, the way a Jewish listener would hear a first line was as a reference to the whole psalm. He was telling everyone within earshot: go and read Psalm 22. That is what is happening right now. And when you read it, you find a detailed prophetic description of the crucifixion — the mocking, the bones out of joint, the casting of lots for His garments, the hands and feet pierced — written by David a thousand years before the event.

Psalm 118 is the crucifixion hymn, the Hallel that the Jewish people sing on every feast day. King David wrote it prophetically for Yeshua. It declares: the right hand of the Lord does valiantly. He shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. It ends with the binding of Yeshua with cords to the horns of the altar — which is Passover. He fulfilled the first four of the Father's divine appointments to the exact day, hour, and detail of the ceremony.

Yeshua came at His first coming as Messiah Ben Yosef — the Joseph-Messiah. Joseph is the supreme prototype of the suffering servant: the beloved son, betrayed by his brothers, sold into the hands of the Gentiles, falsely accused, imprisoned. And then, released from prison on the Feast of Trumpets, exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh, second in command over all of Egypt — and the very brothers who rejected him came to him for bread when the famine struck the earth. He saved the world through the very ones who had cast him away. The parallel to Yeshua is exact. He came as the suffering servant. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father. And when Israel looks on Him whom they pierced, they will come to Him in the great famine of the end of the age, and He will save them.

Jacob's blessing of Joseph's two sons Ephraim and Manasseh in Genesis 48 also points forward: Jacob crossed his hands and gave the firstborn blessing to the younger. Those two sons were half Egyptian — half Gentile. Jacob was already crossing national lines in the act of blessing, foreshadowing the grafting in of the nations that would come through Yeshua's cross. Revelation 13:8 confirms it was always the plan: the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There was never a plan B. The Father ordained it all — the feast days, the timing, the detail — for His Son's glorification.

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THE PERSONAL APPLICATION: THE BENT NUN IN US

If Yeshua came as the bent Nun, then the call of this letter is for us to emulate Him. To be the bent Nun is to be a servant — bowed in prayer, humbled before the Lord, pressed into His Word, receiving correction with thanksgiving. The purification of the Omer season is exactly this: fifty days of bending so that we can be exalted in due time.

Yeshua's brother James told us in his epistle to count it all joy when we fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces patience — and when patience has its perfect work, we will be complete, lacking nothing. That is the bent Nun maturing into the exalted Noon. King David was a man after God's own heart not because he never sinned — he sinned greatly — but because he repented quickly and deeply. He was a great repenter. The heart that bends before the Lord in repentance is the heart He honors.

The Apostle Peter confirms it: the testing of our faith, though it comes through fire, results in praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Yeshua. Paul adds in Romans 5 that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope — a hope that does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And Yeshua Himself declared in John 16:33: in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer — I have overcome the world.

Ephesians 2:8-10 holds both sides of the tension together. We are saved by grace through faith, not of works, so that no one can boast. But then Paul continues: we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Saved by grace, yes — but we are not saved to do nothing. We are saved to be active seed-throwers in His field, the bent Noon who labors for His kingdom and trusts Him to do the exalting.

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THE PSALM 119 SECTION FOR THE NUN

King David's homage to the Nun in Psalm 119, verses 105 through 112:

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep Your righteous judgments. I am afflicted very much — revive me, O Lord, according to Your word. Accept, I pray, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me Your judgments. My life is continually in my hand, yet I do not forget Your Torah. The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I have not strayed from Your precepts. Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes, forever, to the very end.

When David says your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path, he is talking about the Torah. He is the bent Nun, afflicted, with his life in his hands, surrounded by the wicked who have laid snares — and his meditation is not on escape but on the statutes and testimonies of the Lord. That is the purification journey from the cross to the crown: not forty days in the wilderness, but fifty days pressing deeper into His Word, until on the fiftieth day the covenant is sealed.

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A CLOSING PRAYER FOR THE NUN

May we receive the revelation and anointing of the letter Nun as we continue to set apart ourselves on our spiritual purification journey from the cross to the crown. As we pray and meditate — humbling ourselves as a bent Nun, hands lifted, repenting, cleansing, and purifying ourselves — may we hear what the Ruach is telling and revealing to us. In due time He will lift us up. This is the beautiful and refreshing transformation He desires for us: first to humble ourselves and receive His correction and His convictions, and then — only then — will He lift us up for His will and His purposes for our life in His kingdom on earth. May we always remember the ultimate bent Nun, Yeshua, and His amazing grace. May we receive the double portion of spiritual perfection as we continue our purification on His divine appointments. And just like the pictograph of the Nun — a seed, representing life and activity — may we be active, not stagnant, like a fish multiplying and swimming rapidly, sharing the true good news with everyone we encounter. Amen.

Today is Day 25 of the Omer count — three weeks and four days. We are halfway to Shavuot. May YHWH bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you His everlasting shalom. My name is Chadwick Harvey. You are with Faithful Performance.