Nain

• hill of

122:6.1The home of Je­sus was not far from the high hill in the northerly part of Naz­a­reth, some dis­tance from the vil­lage spring, which was in the east­ern sec­tion of the town. Je­sus’ fam­ily dwelt in the out­skirts of the city, and this made it all the eas­ier for him sub­se­quently to en­joy fre­quent strolls in the coun­try and to make trips up to the top of this near-by high­land, the high­est of all the hills of south­ern Gal­i­lee save the Mount Ta­bor range to the east and the hill of Nain, which was about the same height. Their home was lo­cated a lit­tle to the south and east of the south­ern promon­tory of this hill and about mid­way be­tween the base of this el­e­va­tion and the road lead­ing out of Naz­a­reth to­ward Cana. Aside from climb­ing the hill, Je­sus’ fa­vorite stroll was to fol­low a nar­row trail wind­ing about the base of the hill in a north­east­erly di­rec­tion to a point where it joined the road to Sep­pho­ris.

• Joseph father of Jesus worked at

123:3.8The next few years Joseph did con­sid­er­able work at Cana, Beth­le­hem (of Gal­i­lee), Mag­dala, Nain, Sep­pho­ris, Ca­per­naum, and En­dor, as well as much build­ing in and near Naz­a­reth. As James grew up to be old enough to help his mother with the house­work and care of the younger chil­dren, Je­sus made fre­quent trips away from home with his fa­ther to these sur­round­ing towns and vil­lages. Je­sus was a keen ob­server and gained much prac­ti­cal knowl­edge from these trips away from home; he was as­sid­u­ously stor­ing up knowl­edge re­gard­ing man and the way he lived on earth.

• Nain

124:1.12When work and car­a­van travel were slack, Je­sus made many trips with his fa­ther on plea­sure or busi­ness to near-by Cana, En­dor, and Nain. Even as a lad he fre­quently vis­ited Sep­pho­ris, only a lit­tle over three miles from Naz­a­reth to the north­west, and from 4 B.C. to about A.D. 25 the cap­i­tal of Gal­i­lee and one of the res­i­dences of Herod An­tipas.

• Nain

137:2.8Je­sus had now as­sem­bled one half of his fu­ture corps of in­ti­mate as­so­ciates, five who had for some time known him and one stranger, Na­than­iel. With­out fur­ther de­lay they crossed the Jor­dan and, go­ing by the vil­lage of Nain, reached Naz­a­reth late that evening.

146:6.1These peo­ple be­lieved in signs; they were a won­der-seek­ing gen­er­a­tion. By this time the peo­ple of cen­tral and south­ern Gal­i­lee had be­come mir­a­cle minded re­gard­ing Je­sus and his per­sonal min­istry. Scores, hun­dreds, of hon­est per­sons suf­fer­ing from purely ner­vous dis­or­ders and af­flicted with emo­tional dis­tur­bances came into Je­sus’ pres­ence and then re­turned home to their friends an­nounc­ing that Je­sus had healed them. And such cases of men­tal heal­ing these ig­no­rant and sim­ple-minded peo­ple re­garded as phys­i­cal heal­ing, mirac­u­lous cures.

146:6.2When Je­sus sought to leave Cana and go to Nain, a great mul­ti­tude of be­liev­ers and many cu­ri­ous peo­ple fol­lowed af­ter him. They were bent on be­hold­ing mir­a­cles and won­ders, and they were not to be dis­ap­pointed. As Je­sus and his apos­tles drew near the gate of the city, they met a fu­neral pro­ces­sion on its way to the near-by ceme­tery, car­ry­ing the only son of a wid­owed mother of Nain. This woman was much re­spected, and half of the vil­lage fol­lowed the bear­ers of the bier of this sup­pos­edly dead boy. When the fu­neral pro­ces­sion had come up to Je­sus and his fol­low­ers, the widow and her friends rec­og­nized the Mas­ter and be­sought him to bring the son back to life. Their mir­a­cle ex­pectancy was aroused to such a high pitch they thought Je­sus could cure any hu­man dis­ease, and why could not such a healer even raise the dead? Je­sus, while be­ing thus im­por­tuned, stepped for­ward and, rais­ing the cov­er­ing of the bier, ex­am­ined the boy. Dis­cov­er­ing that the young man was not re­ally dead, he per­ceived the tragedy which his pres­ence could avert; so, turn­ing to the mother, he said: “Weep not. Your son is not dead; he sleeps. He will be re­stored to you.” And then, tak­ing the young man by the hand, he said, “Awake and arise.” And the youth who was sup­posed to be dead pres­ently sat up and be­gan to speak, and Je­sus sent them back to their homes.

146:6.3Je­sus en­deav­ored to calm the mul­ti­tude and vainly tried to ex­plain that the lad was not re­ally dead, that he had not brought him back from the grave, but it was use­less. The mul­ti­tude which fol­lowed him, and the whole vil­lage of Nain, were aroused to the high­est pitch of emo­tional frenzy. Fear seized many, panic oth­ers, while still oth­ers fell to pray­ing and wail­ing over their sins. And it was not un­til long af­ter night­fall that the clam­or­ing mul­ti­tude could be dis­persed. And, of course, not­with­stand­ing Je­sus’ state­ment that the boy was not dead, ev­ery­one in­sisted that a mir­a­cle had been wrought, even the dead raised. Al­though Je­sus told them the boy was merely in a deep sleep, they ex­plained that that was the man­ner of his speak­ing and called at­ten­tion to the fact that he al­ways in great mod­esty tried to hide his mir­a­cles.

146:6.4So the word went abroad through­out Gal­i­lee and into Judea that Je­sus had raised the widow’s son from the dead, and many who heard this re­port be­lieved it. Never was Je­sus able to make even all his apos­tles fully un­der­stand that the widow’s son was not re­ally dead when he bade him awake and arise. But he did im­press them suf­fi­ciently to keep it out of all sub­se­quent rec­ords ex­cept that of Luke, who re­corded it as the episode had been re­lated to him. And again was Je­sus so be­sieged as a physi­cian that he de­parted early the next day for En­dor.