The rebuke of Christ: V. 23. And He said unto them, Ye will surely say unto Me this proverb, Physician, heal Thyself; whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Thy country. V. 24. And He said Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. V. 25. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; v. 26. but unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. V. 27. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian.
Even now prejudice and rejection were raising their heads in the minds of the people of Nazareth; they were refusing in their hearts to believe Him to be the Messiah of the prophets. And Jesus read their thoughts and intentions; He anticipated their attack. They were not satisfied with preaching, but had a proverbial saying in mind: Physician, heal thyself. They had heard that Jesus had done great miracles at Capernaum and elsewhere, and they believed that miracles of healing, like charity, should begin at home. They wanted concrete evidence of His ability, if they were to believe. They met Him from the start with skeptic, unbelieving hearts.
And Jesus, reading these thoughts, solemnly declared to them, what He repeated upon various occasions, that no prophet is acceptable in his own country. His own countrymen, his own fellow-citizens, are the most critical, the most skeptical, and the first to condemn. If the people of Nazareth had met the Lord with an open mind, ready to be convinced by word and deed, as other communities had been, then Jesus would have been more than willing to convince them.
But here He is forced to draw a parallel between the present situation and two incidents recorded in the Old Testament. Emphatically He declares that there were many widows in the country at the time of Elijah of old, during the great famine, and yet Elijah was sent only to the town of Sarepta, or Zarephath, to a widow that lived there, 1 Kings 17. And many lepers lived in Israel at the time of Elisha, and yet only Naaman the Syrian was cleansed, 2 Kings 5.
Here was a lesson and a warning. The Jews of old might also have said with regard to these strangers, one a Sidonian, the other a Syrian: Why did the prophets not perform these miracles among their own country-people? Just as those prophets, with whom the Lord, in His humility, places Himself on a level, could not work among the Jews on account of the latters' unbelief, so the people of Nazareth, that had the help at their very doors, closed and hardened their hearts against the influence of the preaching of Jesus. They would, therefore, have no one to blame but themselves if condemnation would come upon them.