NAIN nān. During His great Galilean ministry following the healing of the Rom. centurion’s slave in Capernaum, Jesus journeyed about twenty-five m. S to a city called Nain (Luke 7:11-17). As he approached the city, he met the funeral procession of a widow’s son, apparently a well-known person, since the procession consisted of a large crowd from the city. Touched by the desolate state of the widow, Jesus miraculously restored the young man to life to the astonishment and gratitude of the whole city and neighboring territory. Luke is the only evangelist to report this episode. This is one of some thirteen places where Luke uses the name Lord (ὁ κύριος, v. 13) for Jesus (a designation, apart from the vocative) found only once in Matthew (21:3) and Mark (11:3).

About ten miles S and slightly E of Nazareth near Kefar Yeledim and Mahne Yisreael is the modern village of Nain, identified with the NT city. The present village is a Moslem settlement. It lies at the foot of Jebel ed Dahi on the northern edge of the Plain of Esdraelon. A small chapel erected by the Franciscans in 1880, supposedly upon the foundations of an ancient sanctuary, marks the site of one of the most touching scenes in the life of Jesus—the raising of the widow’s son.

Josephus mentions a village called Nain (Wars IV. ix. 4, 5), which a revolutionary named Simon fortified in an attempt to usurp the command of the Jews shortly after the death of Galba in a.d. 69. This, however, is located in Idumea, S of Masada, and obviously is not the village referred to in Luke 7:11.