Luke 10:13-16

Woe to thee, Chorasin (Matthew 11:21-24). While the terms in which the woes on the cities of Galilee are reported are nearly identical in Mt. and Lk., the connections in which they are given are different. In Mt. the connection is very general. The woes simply find a place in a collection of moral criticisms by Jesus on His time: on John, on the Pharisees, and on the Galilean towns. Here they form part of Christ's address to the Seventy, when sending them forth on their mission. Whether they properly come in here has been disputed. Wendt (L. J., p. 89) thinks they do, inasmuch as they indicate that the punishment for rejecting the disciples will be the same as that of the cities which were unreceptive to the ministry of the Master. J. Weiss (in Meyer), on the other hand, thinks the woes have been inserted here from a purely external point of view, noting in proof the close connection between Luke 10:12 and Luke 10:16. It is impossible to be quite sure when the words were spoken, but also impossible to doubt that they were spoken by Jesus, probably towards or after the close of His Galilean ministry. καθήμενοι, after σποδῷ, is an addition of Lk.'s, explanatory or pictorial.