What is a…
bier

Greek: σορός —transliteration: soros

This word appears in the King James Version translation of a verse in the Gosepl of Luke. Here it refers an open wooden frame, plank, or simple stretcher used to carry a dead body to burial. The Greek word can mean an urn, a coffin, or a funeral couch; here it refers to an open bier rather than a closed box.

1st-century Jewish practice did not use sealed coffins like modern Western ones. The body was washed, wrapped in linen strips with a cloth over the face, and laid on a flat wooden frame or pallet. Pallbearers carried it on their shoulders from the house through the streets to a tomb outside the town, usually the same day.

Now when he [Jesus] came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, “Weep not.” And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother. —Luke 7:12-15

Jesus touched the bier rather than the corpse because a person became ceremonially unclean under the Law by touching a dead body (Numbers 19). The bearers stopped at his touch, and he commanded the young man to rise. The miracle shows both his compassion and his total authority over death. Some English translations render the word “coffin,” but the scene describes an open funeral litter, not a lidded casket.

This miracle took place in Nain (also spelled Naim or Na’in), a town in Galilee.

Luke 7:11 says Jesus “went to a town called Nain” the day after healing the centurion’s servant in Capernaum. At Nain’s town gate he met the funeral procession of the widow’s only son.