NATHAN (Hebr. Nāthān «[God] Has Given»). - Prophet who, around 1000 B.C., appeared suddenly when David asked his opinion about whether or not to build a temple to Yahweh (II Sam. 7:2). N. replied in assent, but the following night God made him understand that this was reserved for others, not for David. At the same time, however, he made him the announcer of a most consoling prophecy: it would be God who would build a house for David, that is, He would give him a long line of kings, whose throne would stand forever (ibid. 7:4-17; I Chron. 17:4-14). Forever, in fact, would be the kingdom of Jesus Christ, son of David (Lk. 1:32 f.).
N. then reproached David as adulterer and murderer: he had the joy of seeing him repent and of being able to impose upon the newborn Solomon, by commission of the Lord, the symbolic surname of Jedhīdhāh, "friend of Yahweh" (II Sam. 12:1-25). When, with David now old, the question of succession to the throne arose, N. took the side not of Adonijah but of Solomon (I Kings 1). He wrote a history of the deeds of David (I Chron. 29:29 f.) and of those (perhaps the early ones) of Solomon (II Chron. 9:29), which probably furnished materials to the authors of Samuel and Kings. He is a magnificent example of a man of God, faithful to his mission and fearless before the powerful, in times of absolutism.
Others in the Bible bear the same name: a Jew in I Chron. 2:36; a son of David (II Sam. 5:15; Zech. 12:12), through whom Christ traces His descent to David in the genealogy of Luke (Lk. 3:31); the father (or brother?) of one of David's warriors (II Sam. 23:36; I Chron. 11:38); an envoy of Ezra (Ezra 8:16); a post-exilic priest who had taken a foreign woman as his wife (Ezra 10:39).