9. In Galilee. John the Baptist while in prisonsends messengers to Jesus, Matt. 11:2; Luke 7:19. Jesus had now performed a large part of his life’s work, and in some degree he now reviews it and in several places sums up the amount done. He reviews also the instances in which he had been unsuccessful in persuading some to believe upon his mission and accept him as the true Messiah. In this review he mentions Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, and compares their advantages with those enjoyed by Tyre and Sidon.
CHORAZIN AND BETHSAIDA, Matt. 11:21; Luke 10:13.
10. The site of the former of these places is unknown. Excepting the similarity of the names, Kerazeh and Chorazin, we have nothing to show that the ruin called by the former name is identical with the place known in Scripture by the latter name. The ruin called Kerazeh is two and a half miles from the northern shore of the lake and about 900 feet higher than its surface. The ruins of a supposed synagogue are to be found there, and near them is a spring.
Against this supposed site of Chorazin it is said that Jerome[167] speaks of it as one of the cities which were upon the shores of the lake. In reply it is said the traveller Willibald, going northward in the beginning of the eighth century, says that he went from Tiberias by Magdala, now called Mejdel, to Capernaum, thence to Bethsaida,thence to Chorazin,and thence to the fountains of the Jordan,[168]so that the order of localities thus stated makes Chorazin probably off the lake.[169] Kerazeh appears to answer to all that the Scripture claims for Chorazin both in name and locality.
11. As to Bethsaida, there are supposed to have been two of this name, which means “fish-house;” the one is just east of the Jordan, about a mile above the place where it empties into the northern end of the lake. This was the eastern Bethsaida, and at about this period of our Saviour’s life Herod Philip, the tetrarch, had greatly enlarged and beautified the place and given it the name “Julias” in honor of the daughter of Augustus; and here he was buried, A. D. 33, in a costly tomb which he had erected for himself.
It was near this Bethsaida that Jesus fed the five thousand with the five loaves and two fishes,and after dismissing the crowd retired into one of the neighboring hills to pray.[170]
12. Place uncertain, probably Capernaum. At the house of Simon the Pharisee, while “at meat,” Christ’s feet are anointed by a woman who is called “a sinner,” Luke 7:36. Another anointing by a woman took place at a much later period, and perhaps a third just before his betrayal, John 11:2; 12:2. Anointing was very common in those days.The so-called alabaster-box was not necessarily of any one material, much less of the material known now as alabaster.The same Greek term is used by Herodotus[171] in exactly the same form used in Matt. 26:7; Mark 14:3; Luke 7:37,and the vessel might have been of marble, of glass, or metal.[172]Theocritus[173] writes of “golden alabasters filled with Syrian ointments.”
It was customary to anoint the head and also the feet of a guest on certain occasions, and the alabastron was common among persons of means. There is therefore no sufficient reason to suppose that this anointing was so rare an instance that the several accounts in the Gospels refer to only one event. The other accounts besides that referred to at the beginning of this section are found in Matt. 26:6; Mark 14:3, which appear to describe one and the same occasion, shortly before his betrayal, and John 11:2; 12:2, which description is somewhat similar to that of the preceding Gospels.
13. Galilee. Our Saviour makes visits with the twelve through Galilee the second time. Luke 8:1. This seems to have been in Galilee, judging from the context as compared with Matt. 12:46; Mark 3:31, and following verses in the next chapter. He seems to have visited extensively, as the Greek phrase, “city by city and village by village,” signifies.
14. The following incidents are supposed to have taken place about this time and in the following order, all in Galilee: