Matthew11chapter 11

John sent his question from a cell. Josephus says Herod Antipas imprisoned and executed John at Machaerus, a hilltop fortress east of the Dead Sea — a hard, hot place, and a long way from the Jordan crossings where John had preached.

The taunt about a reed shaken by the wind may have had a coin behind it. Antipas struck coinage bearing a reed, the plant that grew thick along the lake he built his new capital beside. A man in soft clothing in a king's palace is the obvious contrast to the man in camel hair.

The three towns cursed at the end of the chapter sat within a few miles of one another on the lake's north shore. Chorazin and Capernaum are excavated ruins today, and the exact site of Bethsaida is still argued over — two candidate mounds near the Jordan's inflow have both been proposed. Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenician port cities held up as less guilty, were bywords in Israel's Scriptures for pagan wealth and pride.

The closing invitation uses a teacher's word. A rabbi's whole body of interpretation was called his yoke, and taking a teacher's yoke meant accepting his reading of the Law. Farm yokes were carved to fit a particular animal's shoulders, so an easy yoke was one that had been shaped for the one who wore it.