Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for 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.
Ver. 21. Woe unto thee, Chorazin] These littorals, or those that dwell by the sea coast, are noted to be duri, horridi, immanes, omnium denique pessimi, rough, harsh, thievish, peevish people, and as bad as those that are worst. But that which aggravated these men's sin, and made it out of measure sinful, was the contempt of the gospel: which, as it is post naufragium tabula, so "how shall they escape that neglect so great salvation?" See that ye shift not off him that speaketh from heaven, &c., μη παραιτησησθε, Hebrews 12:25. Jerome tells us that Chorazin was in his time turned into a desert, being two miles distant from Capernaum. As for Bethsaida, our Saviour had there hence taken three of his apostles at least, to be lights of the world, but the inhabitants of this town loved darkness rather than light; the apostles, their countrymen, could do no good upon them. Our Saviour therefore would not allow so much as the blind man whom he had cured to be their preacher, but led him to the town's end, and there restoring him to sight, sent him away.
They would have repented long ago] Blind heathens, when any misery was upon them, would to their sackcloth and sorrows, thinking thereby to pacify God, and so they rested. In like sort there are among us, that when they are afflicted, especially in conscience, set upon some duty, so to lick themselves whole again, Isaiah 58:5. They do as crows, that when they are sick give themselves a vomit, by swallowing down some stone, and then they are well. They rest in their repentance: hence Austin saith, "Repentance damns more than sin."