Ver. 21,22. Luke hath the same, Luke 10:13,14. Chorazin (and) Bethsaida were two cities of Galilee not far from one another, only the lake of Gennesaret was between them. Capernaum (by and by spoken of) was between them both, on the same side of the lake as Bethsaida, which was the city of Philip, Andrew, and Peter, 1 Thessalonians 1:44. In these towns Christ had often preached, so probably had the apostles, and Christ had done many great works in them. Tyre and Sidon were habitations of heathens, their country joined to Galilee. They were places of great traffic, inhabited with Canaanitish idolaters, and exceedingly wicked; threatened by the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 23:1-18, and by the prophet Ezekiel, Ezekiel 26:1-28:26, and by Amos, Amos 1:9,10; a people odious to the Jews upon many accounts. To these our Lord here compares the Galileans, telling them that they were worse than that pagan people, who were so contemptible in their eyes, and that their plagues in the day of judgment would be greater. For (saith he) if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Some think this a strong proof, that where the gospel is preached God gives a sufficiency of grace; so as if men will but use that power which they have in their own wills, they may, with the assistance only of that grace, truly repent and be saved. I shall not meddle with that dispute, but cannot see how that notion can derive any proof from this text;
1. Because the text only mentions Christ's miracles, not his preaching.
2. The text doth not say, they would long ago have repented unto life, but they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes, they would have been more affected than these Galileans were, who showed no sense at all of their sins. The king of Nineveh and his people repented, Jonah 3:7,8; so did Ahab, 1 Kings 21:27; yet none will say they repented unto life. None ever denied a power in man's will (his understanding being by the gospel enlightened to his duty) to perform acts of moral discipline.
3. Our Saviour might here speak after the manner of men, according to rational conjectures and probabilities. The scope of our Saviour in these words is to be attended, which was only to show, that the men of Chorazin and Bethsaida, showing no signs of remorse for sin, or conviction of the Messias upon the sight of his miracles, confirming his doctrine to be from heaven, had showed a greater stubbornness and hardness of heart than these heathens, who, though they were bad enough, yet had not had such means to reform and to convince them. Therefore he tells them their place in hell would be more dreadful than the place of the men of Tyre and Sidon. And so we are by this text taught, that as the sins of men who have the light of the gospel are much greater than the sins of the worst of men who have it not, so their condemnation in the day of judgment will be much heavier, 1 Thessalonians 3:19.