John 4:51 - Exposition

Now as he was going down to Capernaum (if we take any of the more recent determinations of the site of Cana (see John 2:1 , John 2:2 ), this means that he had traversed a distance of between twenty and twenty-five miles, so that there is no reason to treat with ridicule or regard as inexplicable the time taken for the return journey, or that a night should have been spent in the transit from Cana), his servants met £ him , saying , £ that his boy lived . The oblique form is certainly far more reasonable, less mechanical, and more likely to have been altered into the direct form by an incautious copyist from the previous verse, than to have constituted the original text. Note that Jesus used the most dignified title, "son" ( υἱός ); the father employs the tender diminutive ( παιδίον ); while the servants use the domestic term ( παῖς ).