Whence that name, Capernaum?
by
Damien F. Mackey
“So
then, comparing the antitype with the type, even as Herod sought to destroy
the
Divine Child whose birth might be supposed to endanger his throne,
so
Ahaz, from a different motive indeed, may have sought to destroy
the
typical Immanuel, the prediction concerning whose birth
foretold
the ruin of Judah at the hands of Assyria”.
If, as is
generally thought, the name of the famous town is derived from Kfar Naḥum (כְּפַר נַחוּם), literally, ‘Nahum’s
village’, then I can think of only two prophets Nahum who could possibly have
inspired it.
One of these
was the prophet Nahum, who was Jonah (cf. Tobit 14:4), the man of God who
hated Assyria.
The other was
the pious and prayerful Nehemiah, whom I have identified as the better-known prophet
Daniel:
Nehemiah
must surely be the wise prophet Daniel
(5) Nehemiah must
surely be the wise prophet Daniel
The two
names, Nahum and Nehemiah, both being derived from the verb נחם (naham), ‘to
be sorry or to comfort’, are, obviously, closely related:
Nehemiah | The amazing
name Nehemiah: meaning and etymology
I would
quickly disqualify Nehemiah – even when extended, as Daniel – as having had any
meaningful association with Capernaum. The prophet went into Babylonian
captivity at a young age (Daniel 1:1-6) and lived out his glorious life in
exile (1:21): “And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus”.
Apart from
his return to Jerusalem in that propitious year (Ezra 2:2), he had visited Jerusalem
very briefly on two other occasions: firstly, “in the twentieth year of King
Artaxerxes” (Nehemiah 2:1), who was Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’, and,
secondly, in the 32nd year of that same “king of Babylon” (13:6).
The prophet
Nahum, a Simeonite largely located in Israel, looms as a much better candidate,
potentially, for having a meaningful association with Capernaum.
Tobit’s
extension of Nahum to include Jonah, yet needs the far more significant
extension, in the context of this article, of Nahum-Jonah as Isaiah.
On this, see
e.g. my article:
God
can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon
(8) God can raise
up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon
Vital to
this reconstruction is the brilliant insight of Charles Boutflower, that,
analogous to the flight of the Holy Family from the enraged king, Herod, the
typifying family of Isaiah may have had to flee to northern Galilee (he will
suggest to Nazareth) to escape the wrathful king Ahaz of Judah. On this, see my
latest article:
Isaiah
took his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz
(8) Isaiah took
his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz
….
If on the above grounds we are led to look upon the
typical Immanuel as Isaiah’s own son, a very interesting deduction follows:
viz. that within a year or two of Immanuel’s birth Isaiah must have left
Jerusalem for a while and gone to live in the now desolated land of Israel. For
it is predicted of Immanuel that when he is a young lad two principal articles
of his diet will be butter and honey: chap. vi. 15. And then, a little further
on in the same chapter, it is explained that this being obliged to depend on
butter and honey, will be a consequence of the Assyrian invasion: that owing to
the depopulation of the country, the land will go out of cultivation, and what
is now vineyards and cornfields will become thickets ; but that there will
still be pasturage for cattle, and the wild bees will still lay up their honied
stores, so that “butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst
of the land.” Now since this description of Immanuel’s surroundings in his
early boyhood’s years does not apply to Judah and Jerusalem, but does apply to
the land of Israel, and especially to northern Israel, the presumption is that
Immanuel while still a young lad was taken by his father to live in the
northern kingdom, and into that part of the kingdom whose inhabitants had so
lately been carried captive.
What was the reason for a prophet, whose heart was so
centred in Jerusalem, leaving the Holy City and going to live in the desolated
land of the Ten Tribes? In all probability it was the wrath of Ahaz. When
Isaiah confronted Ahaz and bade him ask a sign of the LORD his God, the young
king’s evasive answer showed that he was afraid of the prophet ; and as he
listened to the terrible denunciations from the lips of Isaiah of the woes that
were coming on his country because of the line of policy which he had secretly
resolved to pursue, fear must have ripened into dislike and hatred. So then,
comparing the antitype with the type, even as Herod sought to destroy the
Divine Child whose birth might be supposed to endanger his throne, so Ahaz,
from a different motive indeed, may have sought to destroy the typical
Immanuel, the prediction concerning whose birth foretold the ruin of Judah at
the hands of Assyria. …. In this case it would not be long safe for the prophet
and his son to remain in Jerusalem. But whither shall he go when he leaves the
Sacred City? To Ahaz he has spoken of Syria and Israel as forming one land
though under two kings. …. This is because these two powers have for the time
being made themselves into one: “Syria is confederate with Ephraim,” literally
“resteth on Ephraim.” In the long-ago days “Ephraim departed from Judah’’—to
use the prophet’s own words—and now her land is one with the Syrians. But the
days of Ephraim’s existence as a separate kingdom are soon to come to an end.
Within a few short years Ephraim “will be broken in pieces that it be not a
people.” …. And with this disappearance of the kingdom of Ephraim before his
mind the prophet seems to have hailed the thought that the land occupied by the
two Jewish kingdoms, so long divided politically, was by Divine intention, no
less than by nature, one land. Hence, when telling how the flood of Assyrian
invasion will sweep over both kingdoms, he speaks of the two countries, thus
for a time submerged, as “thy land, O Immanuel,” and Thine in all its
“breadth.” …. If, then, our prophet must leave Judah, he need not leave
Immanuel’s land: he will go into that part of it which has just been placed
under the rule of Hoshea … and for greater safety he will go into that district
which lies furthest off from the capital of king Ahaz: he will “withdraw into
the parts of Galilee”. …. That Galilee, whose name is so endeared to us
Christians, was then a deserted region, its inhabitants having been recently
taken captive to Assyria. Their sad fate had fixed itself indelibly on the
prophet’s mind. Nevertheless, the Spirit had revealed to him that there, where
the first blow had fallen, the bright light of happier days, the days of the
Messiah, should first dawn. ‘‘For there shall be no gloom,” he writes, ‘‘to her
that was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time hath he made it glorious, by
the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people that
walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwelt in the land of the
shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” …. Many of the inhabitants
of Galilee, as the previous context shows, had been “driven away into thick
darkness’’; the darkness of a hopeless captivity. The present population was
scanty; but in the Messianic age, as the prophet foretells, Jehovah will
“multiply the nation’’ and thus “increase the joy”: a joy so great that it can
only be compared to the rejoicing before God at the harvest festival, or to the
dividing of the spoil after some signal victory. For Assyria’s oppressive “yoke”
and heavy “burden” no longer rests on the nation: the taskmaster’s “staff’? no
longer descends on its “shoulder.” …. The foe have been put to flight as on
that day when the countless hosts of Midian fled before the sword of the LORD
and of Gideon. They have vanished from the scene, and soon all the vestiges of
hateful war shall vanish likewise. Those long-laced boots, in which the
warriors of the enemy strode proudly amid the tumult … their thick,
close-fitting tunics, now dyed yet deeper with blood … shall make fuel for the
fire. …. And the pledge of all this is before his eyes as he looks at his own
Immanuel. Immanuel! the type, surely, of the long-promised Davidic King! “For
unto us,” he cries, ‘‘a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
government shall be upon his shoulder’’—his royal robe fastened at the shoulder
marking him as the Divinely constituted Ruler— “and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counsellor,” fount of all political wisdom and sagacity ; ‘‘Mighty
God,” his people’s all powerful deliverer; “Everlasting Father,” the father of
his subjects, whose reign shall know no end; and then, last and best of all,
because most desired in that sad day of domestic troubles and foreign invasion,
“Prince of Peace”: peace, internal no less than external: peace, the fruit of
righteous rule and good government: peace, ever on the increase with his
ever-extending sway. How fondly does the prophet dwell on this closing note!
“Of the increase,” he cries, “of his government and of peace there shall be no
end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to
uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall perform this.” The zeal of Jehovah, His
jealousy for His people, ensures all. He is pledged to help them by this
God-given name, Immanuel.
It will
be seen from the above that we may reasonably suppose that the prophet Isaiah,
leaving Judah because of the wrath of Ahaz, went with his son Immanuel into the
land of Israel, and to that part of the land which was furthest off from
Jerusalem, and to which his sympathies were so strongly drawn when he uttered
his lament over the fate of Zebulun and Naphtali, and his glorious song of
exultation over the bright future which awaited that now darkened region. Thus
it was in Galilee that the early years of Immanuel must have been spent. And
this may seem to point forward to our Saviour’s peaceful home at Nazareth, just
as His early ministry “by the way of the sea,” i.e. the Sea of Galilee,
and the coming of the bright Gospel Day is foretold, as St. Matthew assures us,
in this very passage.” The hint of a withdrawal into Galilee contained in the
words which form the heading of this chapter, appears to have been lost on king
Ahaz, or, if noticed by him, may possibly have been welcomed as giving some
hope that he would soon be rid of this troublesome prophet. Fear and dislike
were probably the predominating feelings in his breast. There was, therefore,
no urgent haste for the prophet to leave Jerusalem at once. Accordingly, he was
no doubt there at the time when Immanuel was born, and also a little later,
when at Jehovah’s command he wrote on a large metal tablet … “with the pen of a
man,” i.e. with an ordinary graving-tool, but according to some
translators “in ordinary characters,” FOR MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ. …. This was
done in the presence of two witnesses, one of whom was “Uriah the priest,”
presumably the high priest: … the object being, as Cheyne points out, that when
the prophecy involved in the name should be fulfilled, two men of rank would be
able to testify to its genuineness. But may there not also have been a further
object, viz. that the tablet might speak for the prophet in his absence? For
though he still remained on at Jerusalem nearly a year longer until the birth
of his third son, when the name written on the tablet was explained to mean
that before the newborn child should be able to call its parents, the crisis,
which began with the invasion of Judah by the armies of Syria and Israel, would
end with the carrying off by the king of Assyria of the spoils of those two
kingdoms; yet when that event took place he was gone, leaving behind him the
tablet and the word of two reliable witnesses to vouch for the genuineness of
the inscription and of the prophetic oracle enshrined in that long uncouth
name. ….
Rather than Nazareth,
though, I would like to propose that Isaiah and his family fled to the remote
northern region of Capernaum, and that it was due to Isaiah’s sojourn there, as
Nahum, that the place traditionally came to be called Kfar Naḥum (כְּפַר נַחוּם), ‘Nahum’s village’.
Much later, around the C2nd
BC, this remote location had developed into the thriving fishing town as we
know it from the Gospels.
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