Ep. 58: Woe on unrepentant towns

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MATTHEW 11:20-24

A peculiarity in the instructions given to the Seventy seem verbal rather than real; the expression, ‘if the Son of Peace be there’ is a Hebraism, equivalent to ‘if the house be worthy’ and refers to the character of the head of the house and the tone of the household. Lastly, the direction to eat and drink such things as were set before them is only a further explanation of the command to abide in the house which had received them. Finally, in Luke, the address to the Seventy is followed by a denunciation of Chorazin and Bethsaida. This is evidently in its right place; after the ministry of Jesus in Galilee had been completed and finally rejected. In Matthew, it stands immediately after the Lord’s rebuke of the popular rejection of the Baptist’s message. The ‘woe’ pronounced on those cities, in which ‘most of his mighty works were done’ is in proportion to the greatness of their privileges.

The denunciation of Chorazin and Bethsaida is the more remarkable in that Chorazin is not otherwise mentioned in the Gospels, nor yet any miracles recorded as having taken place in Bethsaida. This is surely a mark of authenticity of the history being described, rather than just fulfilling a ‘legend’. Again, apparently, no record has been preserved in the Gospels of most of Christ’s miracles, only those being narrated which were necessary to present Jesus as the Christ, in accordance to the respective plans on which each of the Gospels was constructed. Chorazin and Bethsaida are compared with Tyre and Sidon, which under similar declarations would have repented, while Capernaum, which, as for so long the home of Jesus is compared with Sodom. And such guilt involved greater punishment.

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)