Biblion Bible Commentary
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Woe to You, Chorazin
Matthew 11:20-24
20 Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they didn’t repent. · WEB
Three towns that saw the most and did the least, measured against three that were bywords for wickedness.
Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they didn't repent Matthew 11:20.
The charge is not hostility. Chorazin , Bethsaida and Capernaum did not run him out of town; Capernaum was his base, and the previous chapters are full of what he did there. What is condemned is a settled failure to change in places where the evidence was heaviest.
Chorazin is worth a note: no miracle at Chorazin is recorded anywhere in the Gospels. The town is denounced for its response to works we have no account of, which is a quiet reminder that what is written down is a selection John 21:25.
"If the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes" Matthew 11:21.
The comparison is with the Phoenician cities the prophets denounced for pride and commerce Ezekiel 28:2 — and the verdict is that they would have repented. That is a real statement about what those people would have done given what these people were given.
It also establishes something about the judgment this Gospel keeps describing: it is proportioned to opportunity. More tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you means the standard is not a flat measure of wickedness but a comparison between what was shown and what was done with it.
"You, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, you will go down to Hades" Matthew 11:23.
The words are lifted from Isaiah's taunt against the king of Babylon Isaiah 14:13–15, and applying them to a fishing village is deliberately disproportionate. Capernaum's exaltation was that he lived there; its fall is measured from that height.
"For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in you, it would have remained until today" Matthew 11:23.
The last comparison is the hardest. Sodom is the Old Testament's standing example of a city destroyed for its wickedness Genesis 19:24–25, and the claim is that it would have survived had it seen what Capernaum saw. The town where the paralytic was lowered, the centurion's servant healed and the fever rebuked is told it is in a worse position than the city God overturned.
What makes it worse is not what they did but what they declined to do with what they were given, and this Gospel has said the same thing about a town that refuses a pair of messengers Matthew 10:15. Familiarity with the works is not the same as repentance, and it raises the account rather than settling it.
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