Unrepentance and the Judgment Spoken Against Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum in Matthew 11:20-24

When Jesus unfavorably compared the unrepentance of the Galilean towns where he had preached to the repentance Tyre, Sidon and Sodom would have shown to the same preaching. the repentance of which he spoke clearly included behavioral change.

When Jesus spoke judgment against the towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida in Galilee in Matthew 11:20-22, he may have come as close as the New Testament ever comes to using the verb metanoeō to mean a mere change of belief with no corresponding actions. Matthew 11:20-22 (WEB) reads:

Then he began to denounce the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they didn’t repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, 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. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”

Matthew 11:20-22.

The words of these verses on their face associate repentance with two conventional symbolic actions that openly demonstrated repentance—wearing sackcloth and sitting in ashes. However, because these acts are symbolic, if left by themselves, they might signify merely a showing of remorse, not a change of life course.

The context clarifies this issue. In the immediately preceding portion of the chapter, Jesus had identified John the Baptist as the greatest of the previous prophets—one who was a prophet and more than a prophet, the prophesied return of Elijah, the one who prepared the way before Jesus. Matt. 11:9-11, 14. It will be recalled from an earlier post that John baptized the people as a sign of their repentance, and that the repentance John preached was all about a changed way of life. In this context, Jesus also states enigmatically that “he who is least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than” John (v. 11b), the apparent explanation being that the days of John only initiated the advance of the kingdom of Heaven, but did not see that kingdom come; from his days forward there has been a struggle for the kingdom. (v. 12). Recall, also, my previous observation that a “kingdom” is a realm in which a king is obeyed, so in connecting both John’s ministry and the warfare of his contemporary situation to the struggle for the kingdom of Heaven, Jesus clearly implies that what both he and John had been doing had a behavioral component—it was a struggle for submission to the King of Heaven. Although there are several competing readings of verse 12 reflected in the various English translations—some emphasizing a personal struggle to come into submission, and others a struggle to bring others into submission—all of them involve a struggle (it is inescapable from the language used).

Jesus then reproves the crowd that followed him for their refusal to believe either John or himself, preferring instead to believe that their own way of life was acceptable and that John and Jesus were defective because they behaved differently:

But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call to their companions and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned for you, and you didn’t lament.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children.”

Matthew 11:16-19.

It is immediately after this reproof that Jesus contrasts the Jewish cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida to the Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon, saying that, whereas Chorazin and Bethsaida rejected his words as those of a friend of “sinners,” if he had been sent to Tyre and Sidon they would have repented! In context, going back to the previous discussion of John and repentance in the Kingdom of Heaven, the “repentance” here in view must be viewed as the same repentance preached by John, and by Jesus—a change of life toward submission to the King. This is further emphasized by Jesus’ next contrast—between Capernaum and Sodom:

You, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, you will go down to Hades. For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in you, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, on the day of judgment, than for you.”

Matthew 11:23-24.

Clearly, Sodom was judged because of the behavior of her people in ignoring the image of God in the poor and in visiting foreigners and insisting upon oppressing and abusing them. God told Abraham that He would destroy Sodom because the “sin” that they had “done” cried out to Him. Genesis 18:20-21. In discussing the rescue of Lot from Sodom, Peter indicates that one specific manner in which the Sodomites oppressed the weak among them, and the expression of this which distressed righteous Lot living among them, was their filthy and lawless deeds. 2 Peter 2:6-8. Jude identifies the most open manifestation of this sin for which Sodom was destroyed as sexual immorality and perversion, Jude 1:7. See, The Problem with Sodom. Yet Jesus contrasts Capernaum with Sodom—saying that, if He had been sent to Sodom and done His miracles there, Sodom would still exist, obviously because she would have changed the wicked behavior that cried out to God. Capernaum, by contrast, had rejected His words. This certainly does imply that, if Capernaum had accepted Jesus’ words, its people would have changed their behavior.

NEXT: Repentance in Jesus’ Early Message.