August 2, 2025
Jesus by the Lake: The City of Nain
, “The day after … he went into a city called Nain” (Luke 7:11).
Nain, means “Pleasant.” It is 758 feet above sea level. Cullman, Alabama, where I live, is 814 feet, so Jesus walked uphill a distance of about 30 miles from Capernaum to Nain, which, without stopping, would take around 12 hours. But it would be somewhat quicker if he took a boat to the southern coast of the Sea of Galilee before walking the remainder of the way.
Nain has a front row seat to history. It’s on the eastern edge of the Valley of Jezreel:
- 1 mile from Shunem where Elisha raised a boy from the dead (2 Kings 4:837)
- 1 mile from the Hill of Moreh where Gideon fought the Midianites (Judges 7:1)
- 2 miles from Endor where Saul visited a witch (1 Samuel 28:7)
- 5 miles from Mt. Tabor where Deborah and Barak gathered their army (Judges 4:12)
- 6 miles from Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown (Luke 2:39)
- 10 miles from Megiddo where Deborah & Barak defeated Sisera (Judges 5:1920)
–Daniel McCabe
Trivia Quiz (Answer at the bottom of this page)
The twelve spies returned from Canaan with a large cluster of grapes which two of them carried on a pole, but what else does Numbers 13:23 say that they brought out of the land?
A. Dates and olives
B. Milk and honey
C. A partridge in a pear tree
D. Pomegranates and figs
History: Edmond Rothschild
I am thankful to so many family members and friends over the years who have helped support me and my family in the service of the Lord as a pastor and church planter. Homecooked meals and meals out. Cash, cars and cheesecake. Prayers and a helping hand.
So I can relate to the late nineteenthcentury and early twentiethcentury Jewish pioneers in their quest to carve out a life in Palestine who received financial assistance and employment opportunities from a man whom they respectfully dubbed, “The Baron Rothschild.” Some have estimated the baron’s financial support at more than fifty million dollars, equivalent to almost one billion dollars today.
Born into a noble Jewish banking family in France, Edmond Rothschild established schools, synagogues, farms, wineries and factories throughout Palestine. He backed research to develop electric generating stations and even sponsored key archaeological digs.
Buried in Paris in 1934 after decades of steady support for Jewish settlers in the Holy Land, his body and that of his wife were later transported to Israel in 1954 through the port of Haifa where they were met with sirens, a nineteengun salute and a memorial service at which David BenGurion (the first prime minister of Israel) delivered the eulogy. The Rothschilds were then buried on a nearby hill named “The Generous One’s Heights.”
From 198286 the baron’s portrait appeared on the Israeli 500shekel note, featuring a group of farmers and a beautiful cluster of grapes. A mall in Rishon LeZion bears his name as do many city streets throughout Israel, including Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. Few have been as gracious to the Jewish people as this beloved man.
–Daniel McCabe
On Location:: The Old Yishuv Court Museum
Located on the historic site of one of the oldest courtyards in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, this museum became an immediate favorite of our September 2021 tour group. Yishuv is the Hebrew word for “settlement,” and Old Yishuv describes that community of religious Jews who resided in Palestine before the first wave of modern Jewish immigration began in 1882, and this museum captures Yishuv life in the land from the last twenty years of the nineteenth century until 1948 when Israel became a state. A majority of the Old Yishuv men spent their days studying the Torah and living off donations from Jews living in other countries whereas modern immigration brought agricultural pioneers and political Zionists who sought a homeland and national identity for the Jews.
The museum showcases a small synagogue typical of the time as well as the layout of an ordinary home, including bedrooms, a kitchen, a craft room and even outdoor implements. You’ll learn about the history of the settlers’ professions, including life as a goldsmith, shoemaker, tailor, peddler, wool breaker, knife sharpener and shoe shiner. My favorite display is a Monopolystyle game, dating to the 1940s, that allowed players to purchase settlements and cities throughout Palestine.
–Daniel McCabe
Scripture Study: King Hezekiah, part 1
Sometimes the best summary we can have of biblical characters is to see them in their most outstanding moments. Hezekiah is a good example of this, so let’s read about what happened when this king needed the Lord the most.
Hezekiah, the king of Judah, reigned long after the split between Israel in the north and Judah in the south. You can read about this good king in both 2 Kings and Isaiah, but I’ll focus on his story as recorded in Isaiah 3637, walking through selected portions of the passage to emphasize what I think is the most outstanding moment in his reign.
Following the evil reign of his farther, Hezekiah initiated great spiritual reforms in Judah. In his day the Assyrian Empire had conquered the entire northern kingdom of Israel, which God allowed in order to bring discipline to those in Israel who had turned faithlessly away from Him.
But Hezekiah is king over the southern portion of the country, specifically over the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Isaiah 36:1 records, “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh,” who is a high official in the Assyrian Empire, “from Lachish,” the city that Sennacherib was besieging at the time, “to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army.”
Jerusalem really is the last holdout. Sennacherib was besieging Lachish, a major city in Judah, and Jerusalem was all that remained in the kingdom.
“And the Rabshakeh stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field,” which is close to the Gihon Spring, “and there came out to him Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder.” These three men will now represent Hezekiah, the king of Judah.
“So the Rabshakeh said to them, ‘Say to Hezekiah’”—he’s calling up to them as they’re on the city wall—“‘Say to Hezekiah, “Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, ‘On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are a strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust that you’ve rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him.’”’”
So the Rabshakeh is taunting Hezekiah for thinking that Egypt could conceivably come to his rescue, for Egypt too was on the hit list of the Assyrians, and by this time Egypt wasn’t as strong as it used to be.
He continues, “But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?”
The Rabshakeh is a little confused. He knows a little bit about what’s going on in Israel, particularly that Hezekiah had made many spiritual reforms and had torn down the high places throughout the land, but the high places that Hezekiah tore down were inappropriate places of worship. All the Rabshakeh thinks is, “What? You’re tearing down places to your own God? How can you really trust in Him now?” He’s clearly confused, but he’s still attempting to taunt the king of Judah as any commander of an invading army would.
Jumping down to v. 11, Hezekiah’s representatives now reply to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
It’s interesting to me that they request him to speak in Aramaic, which was a language that the Assyrians would have well understood, but not everyone in Israel. They do this so that the people holed up in Jerusalem with them wouldn’t lose heart, so that they wouldn’t understand what the Rabshakeh is saying.
But he responded, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, but not to the men sitting on the wall who are doomed with you.”
He wants to taunt all the people of Israel. He wants to dishearten the common citizen. So he “stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, ‘Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’”’”
The Rabshakeh, the Assyrian, is really taunting them now and trying to convince the people to not trust in the one true God, the Lord, to whom Hezekiah has been encouraging the people to turn. In this he continues in v. 16, “Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern. I will take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, of bread and vineyards.’”
He’s trying to convince the common person in Jerusalem to abandon Hezekiah and think, “Hey, if we surrender, then maybe the king of Assyria will treat us well and we won’t have to die here.”
He continues then in his attempt to convince the people to abandon trust in the Lord, taunting them by insisting that they don’t stand a chance against the king of Assyria. In v. 21 we see that Hezekiah’s representatives “were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, ‘Do not answer him! Don’t listen to him.’”
–Adam Keim
Scripture Study: Cain’s Wife
I’ve heard it asked, “Where did Cain get his wife who’s mentioned in Genesis 4:17, “And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch?” If Cain took a female family member as his wife, wouldn’t that be incest, which is wrong? Wouldn’t it also be genetically dangerous to marry a family member?
Well, let me attempt a quick answer. The Bible affirms that Adam and Eve (obviously their children and their descendants too) were actual, historical people, not literary symbols for mankind (Matthew 19:4; Luke 3:38; Jude 14). Cain then married a sister (Genesis 5:4, “Adam had [other] sons and daughters”). Cain could not have a child with Eve because she was already married. The gene pool at this point was still reasonably pure, so it would not have been genetically dangerous for Cain to marry a sister. Incest was later outlawed for our protection because of the increased genetic dangers over time (Leviticus 18:616).
Let me know if that was helpful! Have a great weekend!
–Daniel McCabe
Answer to the Trivia
D. Pomegranates and figs