and Capernaum are not precisely known at the present day. The exact site of Capernaum is matter of dispute among travel- lers and geographers. All we can glean from the expression before us is, that Cana was probably in the hill country, and Capernaum on the lake of Galilee. Hence a person leaving Cana for Capernaum would " go down."
\_Thy son liveih.] The meaning of this expression must evi- dently be, '' Thy son is so much better, that he is comparatively alive from the dead. He was as one dead. He is now alive."
52. — [Then inquired he the hour.] This man's mind seems at once to have laid hold on the nature of the miracle, and to have acknowledged the power of Christ's word.
[He began to amend] The G-reek expression so rendered is a very peculiar one, and only found in this place. It is hterally, " Had himself better, in more elegant order." — Let it be noted, that here, as elsewhere, we find an expression which is only used once in the New Testament. This shows that it is no valid argument against the inspiration of any text or passage, that it contains Creek expressions nowhere else used.
[Yesterday at the seventh hour.] This expression has been differently interpreted — according to the view which commenta- tors take of St. John's mode of reckoning time. Those who think that he numbered hours in the same way that we do, main- tain that it means, '' at seven o'clock in the evening." Those, on the contrary, who maintain that St. John observed the Jew- ish mode of computation, say that it means " at one o'clock in the afternoon."
I have already given it as my decided opinion, that John obsei'ves the Jewish mode of reckoning time ; and I therefore hold with those who think, that " the seventh hour" means one o'clock. The arguments of those who say that, if ii had been one o'clock, the nobleman would never have taken till the next day to reach home, appear to my mind quite inconclusive. For one thing, we know nothing accurately of the distance from Cana to Capernaum. — For another thing, we fjrget the slow rate at which people travel in Eastern countries, on bad roads, in a hilly country. — For another thing, it is entirely an assumption to suppose that the nobleman had nothing else to do at Cana, when he came to Jesus about his son. For anything we know, he had, as a nobleman, business of various kinds, which male it impossible for him to reach home in the afternoon nfter Jesns had said, '^Thy son liveth." — Last, but not least, it seems hardly probable that the nobleman would have asked our Lord to come down to Capernaum at so late an hour as seven o'clock in the evening ; or would have set off on his own return ai that hour, and met his servants in the night.