Luke 7:11

And it came to pass the day after that He went into a city called Nain. A city of Galilee two miles distant from Mount Tabor, situated on the river Kison, and called Nain, from the Hebrew word which denotes beauty. Thus Naomi says, "Call me not Naomi," i.e. fair or beautiful, "call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me" (Rth 1:20) words which the widow of Nain, mourning the loss of her only son, might well make her own. So also Psalms 133:1., "Behold how good and how pleasant (Nain) it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," and therefore how sad and sorrowful for brother to be separated from brother, mother from son, by the hand of death.

The place is specially mentioned for the confirmation of the miracle, and also because "Jesus went about all the cities and villages, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people" (S. Mat 9:35); and to show the bitterness of the mother's grief, for the death of her son at Nain was a greater trial to the mother than if they had been living in some country place. Just as it seems more hard for a man to be cut off in youth than in age, in health than in sickness, in prosperity than in adversity, in the spring tide rather than in the winter of life, as it is written (Ecclus. 41:1), "0 Death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions, unto the man that bath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity in all things. 0 Death, acceptable is thy sentence unto the needy and unto him whose strength faileth, to whom everything is a care."