For other Biblical people with this name, see Nathan (given name).

Nathan the Prophet (fl.

Floruit

Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 c. 1000 BC) was a court prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

 who lived in the time of King David and Queen Bathsheba

Bathsheba

According to the Hebrew Bible, Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. She is most known for the Bible story in which King David seduced her....

. He came to David to reprimand him over his committing adultery

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

 with Bathsheba while she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite

Uriah the Hittite

Uriah the Hittite was a soldier in King David’s army mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He was the husband of Bathsheba, and was murdered by order of David by having the soldiers retreat from him in battle. Uriah's wife was pregnant by King David through an adulterous affair...

 whose death the King had also arranged to hide his previous transgression.

His actions are described in the Books of Samuel, Kings

Books of Kings

The Book of Kings presents a narrative history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of his successor Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years...

, and Chronicles

Books of Chronicles

The Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim . Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings...

 (see especially, , .) Nathan wrote histories of the reigns of both David and of Solomon

Solomon

Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...

 (see and ), and was involved in the music of the temple (see 2 Chronicles 29:25).

In it is Nathan who tells the dying David of the plot of Adonijah

Adonijah

Adonijah was the fourth son of King David according to the book of Samuel , which is contained in the Bible.-Life:After the death of his elder brothers Amnon and Absalom, he became heir-apparent to the throne, but Solomon, a younger brother, was preferred to him. Adonijah, however, when his father...

 to become king, resulting in Solomon being proclaimed king instead.

The feast day of Nathan the Prophet is on 24 October. In the Eastern Orthodox Church

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

, and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite

Byzantine Rite

The Byzantine Rite, sometimes called the Rite of Constantinople or Constantinopolitan Rite is the liturgical rite used currently by all the Eastern Orthodox Churches, by the Greek Catholic Churches , and by the Protestant Ukrainian Lutheran Church...

, he is commemorated as a saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

 on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (i.e., the Sunday before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

).

David named one of his sons after the prophet.

External links

• Sunday of the Holy Fathers Orthodox synaxarion synaxarion