NAIL.—1. Heb. 5x, Aram. 15», Arab. zufr, a finger nail, Dt 2113," Dn 4%. In Jer 171 the word refers to the diamond point of the graver or stylus. 2. 3n;, Arab. watad, a pin or peg of wood, a tent peg. In Syria tent pegs are usually of oak, very roughly ebeped and pointed. It was with one of these that Jael treacherously murdered Sisera, Jg 4518. (see Moore, ad loc.). In Ex 27" it is said that the pegs of the tabernacle were of copper. In old houses in Lebanon wooden pegs are driven into the walls of rooms, so that articles may be sus- pended on them. Sometimes the pin is drawn out
y the weight of the article hung on it, having been driven into a mass of clay, used as mortar, between the stones of the wall. The ‘nail in a sure place’ (Is 2255. 35) is one wedged firmly between two stones. 3. 1009 (ninpyp Ec 12"), Arab. mismdr, a nail, generally of metal. In 1 Ch 22% it is said that ‘David prepared iron in abundance for the nails’ ; 2 Ch 3° mentions that ‘ the weight of the nails was 50 shekels of gold.’ In the NT ἧλος is the corre- sponding word, Jn 20”, see CROSS.
W. CARSLAW.
NAIN (Naty).—This place is mentioned only once in Scripture, in Lk 7". The site of the ancient villaget is well authenticated ; it is oceupied by the modern Nein, a squalid, miserable eollection of mud-hovels, situated on the north-western edge of Jebel ed-Duhy, or the ‘ Little Hermon,’ where the hill slopes down into the plain of Esdraelon. The mountain is called Jebel ed-Duhy from an unknown Mohammedan saint, whose wely or sacred place is on the summit of its conical peak. Around the village are numerous rubbish heaps and stony ruins, which indicate that at one time it must have been a place of much greater importance. It does not seem to have ever been a walled and fortified
lace, for no indications of a wall can be seen.
ut Conder (Tent-Work, p. 122) supposes that by the phrase ‘gate of the city,’ in the Gospel narra- tive, we are to understand merely the ordinary entrance among the houses by the open path, just as we commonly speak of ‘the gate of the valley’ or the ‘gate of the pass,’ where no gate or wall actually exists. Stanley (SP p. 357) says that ‘no convent, no tradition, marks the spot.’ But he must have overlooked the rude little mosque so prominent among the houses, strangely enough called the ‘ Place of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ which, from the signilicance of its name, must indicate the previous existence on the spot of a Christian chapel, which disappeared at an early period. The rough steep path leading up to the village is unchanged since that memorable day when our Lord traversed it with weary feet, and met the funeral procession of the widow’s only son. And behind it, in the face of the rocks that pro- ject from the rugged side of the hill, may still be seen shadowy holes and caves, which doubtless mark the old place of sepulture to which the young man’s dead body was being carried on its bier. No grander view can be obtained anywhere in Palestine than that which stretches around Nain, from its zreen nest on the mountain side, amply Justifying its descriptive name, if this is to be derived (with
* ‘The paring of the nails corresponds to one of the acts by which an Arab widow dissolved her widowhood and became free to marry again’ ΟὟ. R. Smith, Kinship, 178; ef. ΟΤυ ΟἹ 868; Lane, Arab. Lex. 2400; Wellhausen, Reste?, 171).
t It must be distinguished from the Nain mentioned by Joa
(BJ τιν. ix. 4), which was on the other side of the Jordan, prob ably in Idumma.
478 NAIOTH
the Talmud) from a Hebrew word oy, a fap ‘beauty’ or ‘pleasantness.’ Within the circle εἶ the surrounding hills some of the most stirring events in Old Testament history have occurred. Below is the extensive plain of Jezreel, which was the great battlefield oe ΡΝ Ασα τα from the days of Nebuchadnezzar to those of Napoleon. ight across are the uplands of Nazareth ; to the left are the bare limestone ridges of Gilboa; away in the distance is the white range of Carmel, with a blue gleam of the Mediterranean at its foot; while far up in the north is the snowy top of great Hermon, dominating all the wide view.
The story of Nain has been told in the simplest and most touching manner by the evangelist. Every word is a picture: the desolation of the widowed mother, the compassion of Jesus, the significance of His action in touching the bier, and so becoming ceremonially unclean through this forbidden contact with death, showing that He raised the young man to life not by His absolute power as bod, but by the power of His own suffering and death; the pathetic deliverance to the mother of her son, for she needed him most, instead of asking him to forsake all and follow Jesus as His disciple.
Lirerature.—Robinson, BRP? ii. 356, 361; van de Velde, Siria and Palestine, ii. 382; Guérin, Galilée, i. 115f.; Buhl, GAP 217; Stanley, SP 357; Neubauer, Géog. du Talm. 188.