Matthew 11:21

Woe unto thee, Chorazin.

Chorazin has long been extinct and its site is not certainly known. It is named only here and in Luke 10:13. Jerome, who lived within about 400 years of when these words were uttered, says that it was only about two miles distant from Capernaum. Situated about two miles from the ruins of Tel-Hum, thought to be Capernaum, there are ruins now called Kerazeh, including. synagogue, columns and walls of buildings. These are supposed by the best archæologists to mark the site of Chorazin. Others place it on the shore of the lake.

Woe unto thee, Bethsaida.

The word means, "House of fish," and the name would imply that it was. fishing town, and it was the home of the fishermen Peter, Andrew and Philip (John 1:44). Its locality is in dispute. Three views are named by Schaff: 1. The ancient view, which held that there was only one place of that name, on the west coast of the lake. Mark 6:45, seems to present. difficulty. 2. The usual modern view that there were two Bethsaidas, "Bethsaida, of Galilee" (John 12:21) on the western shore, and "Bethsaida Julias" on the eastern shore. 3. The latest and best view: Only one place, at the north end of the lake where the Jordan emptied, on both sides of the river, hence partly in Galilee and partly in Gaulonitis.

For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon.

These were rich Phœnician trading cities on the east shore of the Mediterranean. Tyre was long the chief commercial city of the world; it founded Carthage, the great rival of Rome; was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar for thirteen years and the land city taken, but. new city was built on an Island half. mile from shore; was taken again by Alexander the Great after. siege of six months. Hiram, King of Tyre, was the friend of David and Solomon. These cities were denounced by the prophets for their pride and their sins (Isaiah 23:9; Amos 1:9). These cities were still in existence at the time the Savior spoke, and he perhaps meant that their Gentile inhabitants would have received the gospel if they had had the opportunities of the cities of Galilee.

They would have repented.

History tells us that when the gospel was offered to the Gentiles they did repent. Tyre became. Christian city; Chorazin and Bethsaida were destroyed thirty years later, but Tiberias, also on the lake, was permitted to remain, and not only did not receive the gospel, but became the center of Judaism after the fall of Jerusalem.

In sackcloth and ashes.

The symbols of mourning and repentance. See Jonah 3:5, on the repentance of Nineveh. The costume of mourners was. garment like. sack with holes for the arms, and it was usual to strew ashes on the head. Sackcloth was. kind of coarse cloth, woven of camel's hair.