And, the letter C is for…

Capernaum.

If you don’t know it, I understand.

Place names only stick when a place has found a sticking point in the heart.

So, to be honest, many places, no matter how often I have read of them and maybe even studied to get the context for a text, don’t mean that much to me. Biblical places may be significant, but they remain far and distant.

My trip had begun with a quick drive to Jerusalem after touching down at Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv, and a somewhat coastal drive up to Galilee. Then we drove westwards towards the beautiful bay area of Haifa to stay with some friends. Thereafter we headed back to the Galilee area and began driving back to Jerusalem hugging the Galilean shoreline and via the Judean wilderness, stopping at the world-famous Dead Sea (the next letter!).

Letter C goes to the place on the Galilean coast that is known variously as Capernaum in the English Bible, as well as Kfar Nahum, Talhum in Arabic and Capharnaum in Greek.

Kfar Nahum is a conjoining of two words for ‘village’ and ‘rest’, so it came to be known as a city of comfort or repentance. When Jesus lived and served many needs there, comfort must have been real. Yet, Jesus had fiery, angry words of judgment for her lack of repentance and receptivity.

In Greek though, Capharnaum refers to a disorderly collection of objects, perhaps an allusion to it being on a trade route. Well, this is what language can do to a place!