John Gill Commentary Matthew 11:21

"Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for 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 (ASV)

Woe unto you, Chorazin!
&c.] Though many of Christ's mighty works were done in this place, yet mention is made of it nowhere else but here; whether it was a single city, or a country, is not easy to determine: the word (Nyvrwx), "Chorasin", signifying "woody places", Dr. Lightfoot ^F12 conjectures it might include Cana, in which Christ wrought his first miracle, and a small adjacent country, situated in a wood, and be so called from there; and Origen ^F13 reads it as (cora zin), "the region of Zin":

woe unto you, Bethsaida!
This was the city of Andrew and Peter, (See Gill on John 1:44); so that, as bad as it was, some persons were called out of it by the grace of God, and to the high office of apostleship; which makes that grace in such persons the more distinguishing:

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.

These words are to be understood in a popular sense, as Grotius observes, and express what was probable, according to a human judgment of things; and the meaning is, that if the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon had the advantages of Christ's ministry, and of seeing his miracles, as the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida had, it looks very likely, or one would be ready to conclude, especially from many coming out of these parts, to attend on Christ's ministry, (Mark 3:8) and from the conversion of some of them in later times, (Acts 21:3Acts 21:4) they would have repented of their sins; at least, in an external way, signified by sackcloth and ashes, which were outward signs of repentance; see (Isaiah 58:5) (Jeremiah 6:26).

And if this had been performed even in such a manner by the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida, it would have saved them from temporal judgments, which their sins now called for.

The words are an hyperbolical exaggeration of the wickedness of those cities, like (Ezekiel 3:5–7), showing, that they were worse than the Tyrians and Sidonians; a heathenish and idolatrous people, who lived very profligate and dissolute lives, in all intemperance, luxury, and impiety; and therefore would be punished in a severer way:

neither this passage, nor what follows, can be proof of God's giving sufficient grace to all men alike, which in some is effectual to conversion and in others not, but rather proof of the contrary; since the men of Tyre and Sidon had not the same means, or the same grace, as the inhabitants of the other cities had; or that man has the power to repent of himself, in a spiritual and evangelical way; or that outward means, as doctrines and miracles, are sufficient to produce such a repentance, without efficacious and unfrustrable grace; since only an outward repentance is here supposed, such as that of Ahab, and of the Ninevites.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F12: Chorogr. Cent. in Matth. p. 84. Vol. 2.
• F13: Philocalia, p. 109.