“Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at His word and departed. And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.  So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed.  This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee.  John 4:51-54

John 4:51 says that the nobleman took Jesus at His word, and left. The Interlinear Translation of the Greek is:  the man believed the word (logos) that Jesus said to him and left. As we mentioned last week, the nobleman was at the point of begging Jesus to come to Capernaum with him. But suddenly he had a huge faith infusion and believed for a long distance healing. So he went home without Jesus.  Not only that, it appears that he took his time getting there.  How did I know this?  Well, I literally did the Math. 🙂

How far was Cana from Capernaum?  It turns out that there is actually some confusion about this mainly due to the fact that the experts are dependent on archeological ruins today to determine the location of non-extant Cana (Capernaum survived ‘til the time of the Crusades but was eventually abandoned). There are several possible Cana sites in/near Israel: Kefer-Kenna ( 16.5 miles SW), Khirbet Kannah (21 miles S), Kanah (100 miles NW), Khirbet Wana (30 miles N), etc.  The implication is that the father came to Jesus as fast as he could (as the son was on the brink of death).  If he was traveling fast at ~4 mph, and left Capernaum early in the morning, he could have encountered Him before noon, in the case of all but one of the sites.  The seventh hour that John referred to, according to ancient Hebrew timekeeping practices, was from noon to 1 pm.

But what about the return leg?  Scripture says that the nobleman did not encounter his servants until the next day (…”the fever left him yesterday…the very hour in which Jesus had told him, ‘Your son will live.'”);  Assuming that the nobleman set out, possibly with a travel party/group for safety reasons, on a 30 mile journey at 1 pm— and that the servants waited ‘til the next morning to make sure the son was 100%–this scenario works; but on the condition that everyone slowed their speed to 3 mph or less.  Also, the father would have had to stop somewhere for the night (significantly greater chance of encountering robbers than high intensity street lights on the road).

Just like a GMAT train problem:  d = 7 hrs * 3 mph = 21mi. The time is now 8:00 pm and the two parties are 30.0 – 21.0 or 9.0 miles apart.  Party #1 then stops, and both parties begin to close the distance the next morning.  As both are traveling at 3 mph, their closing speed is 6.0 mph. Time to intersection = 9/6.0  =  1.5hr. Total time traveled by first party = 9 + 1.5 = 10.5hr.  Including an 8 hr layover, they would have run into each other at about 8:30 am the next day.  OK I know it’s a little compulsive, but I always enjoy confirming the inerrancy of scripture.  Plus I wonder if someone ever did write a software program to determine the greatest probabilistic location of Cana by simply running what-if scenarios on this biblical account of the nobleman.

While we’re on the subject of the nobleman’s account–how did the nobleman and the servants know it was the 7th hour when the son was healed?  It wasn’t like everyone was wearing Fitbits or using operating system algorithms that synchronized half the people on the planet to Common Universal Time.  Well, they could have determined this by the sun’s position in the sky or, possibly sun dials.  (Sun dials were mentioned in the Old Testament as being in use as far back as the time of King Ahaz.  Isaiah 38:8 references a sun dial with degrees that belong to Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah.)

“Exactly how an hour was reckoned was obviously less precise than it is today. There was a general sense of the position of the sun and there were sundials in use, especially among the Greeks. But there was a general vagueness surrounding it and in determining the exact time of the day in Israel back in Jesus’ day. As already noted, our modern mania for promptness and exactness with time was utterly unknown at the time of Jesus, and even in many places in the world today. Time was a much more flexible phenomenon.“¹

Nevertheless, there was a certain amount of time-mania exhibited by both the nobleman, and the servants.  I can understand the nobleman marking the time, because he effectively heard Jesus say, “The healing just started—right now!”  I’d want to understand what “right now” means.  But the servants had no idea that that had happened, and yet still noted the “very hour” when the boy recovered.  So time could have been pertinent 2000+ years ago as well.  (However, fever symptoms can be time dependent, and may wax or wane depending on the hour of day, so that’s another reason why the servants may have been keeping an eye on the time.  We can’t really know, but God knows. 🙂 )

:53 The man believed and his whole household.

Earlier I mentioned the Greek translation/elucidation of the nobleman believing the word that Jesus said to Him in :51.  pisteúō is the Greek word, meaning to believe, to be persuaded, to think to be true.  And guess what? It’s the same word that is used in :53.  So the man believed before he headed for  home, and then believed again once he got there.  I don’t think this is a case of John repeating himself to make a point.  The nobleman believed different things pre- and post.  In :51, He believed that Jesus had told him the truth about healing his son remotely.  He believed that Jesus had indeed worked a miracle—possibly for the benefit of the bystanders so that they would believe.  And one could surmise that whatever the people were not believing—without the benefit of the signs and wonders—was what the nobleman and his family eventually believed themselves:  i.e., that Jesus was the Messiah, and their Savior.

This brings us to the topic of healing with spiritual salvation as an endgame.  A subset of ~5 of the healing miracles deal with cases in which the people were not only made whole physically, but were also made whole (saved – sozo) spiritually.  The nobleman’s account is one.  The other four healings were of:  the paralytic lowered through roof, the blind man at the Pool of Siloam, the woman with the issue, and the Samaritan leper. In the case of the paralytic, Jesus forgave the man’s sins.  In the case of the blind man, Jesus declared His deity to him after he was cast out of the temple whereupon the man readily believed and was saved.  In the case of the woman, she was healed when she touched the hem of His garment; she was made whole and saved when she came forward and made a confession of her faith; Finally, in the case of one of the ten lepers, he was cleansed, but he was also made whole and saved (sozo) because of his thankfulness.

However, we need to take note that these “salvation endgame” miracles represent a subset of the total.  And just because our spirits are saved already, does not mean that God doesn’t want to “save” our physical bodies as well today.  (sozo – σῴζω: to save, to keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction; to save a suffering one (from perishing), e. g. one suffering from disease, to make well, heal, restore to health; to preserve one who is in danger of destruction, to save (i. e. rescue); to save in the technical biblical sense; to deliver from the penalties of the Messianic judgment)

What does this healing miracle tell us about the nature of our triune God?  He is comfortable working with a timeline, and consequently, He is a patient God—a God of order, precision, and inerrancy.  He will save us in every sense of the word.  And healing is His children’s bread (Matt 15) but more on that later…

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¹Archdiocese of Washington Website:  /2017/03/people-tell-time-jesus-day/