Matthew 11vv2-19

A little outline of what's going on in tomorrow's Gospel reading. It is a section full of questions.


In vv4-6, Jesus responds to John’s question about Jesus. 


Then in vv7-15, we’ll find that Jesus asks the crowd some questions about John.


And then finally in vv16-19, Jesus questions the crowd’s responses both to John and to Jesus.

A reed swayed by the wind (Matthew 11v7)

I've consulted a few commentaries about Jesus' rhetorical question to the crowds about John the Baptist in Matthew 11:7, "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?". The implied answer is no.

The options so far seem to be the following, or I guess just possibly some combination of the following:


Did they go just to admire the scenery of reeds blowing in the breeze? (R. T. France mentions this option)


Or something (someone) unstable, slight, inconsistent, easily moved, someone who adapted themselves to the prevailing opinions of the day or to the political weather? (France / Leon Morris)


Or perhaps the word "reed", the wind and the watery / wilderness context is meant to echo Israel’s experience in the wilderness and the wind blowing back the Sea of Reeds so that Israel could come out of Egypt. In this case, Jesus would be asking, is John a new Moses? (Jesus might then ask, is John the Davidic king? see v8) (This suggestion is in Peter Leithart. France thinks this less plausible but cites Davies and Allison 2:247 as supporting it.)


Or a Galilean reed blown in the wind is a symbol of King Herod Antipas' emblem, as used on his coins. It is this Herod who has John the Baptist in prison, of course, and this would fit with the mention of king's houses in v8. (This is N. T. Wright's view. Again, France thinks this is a less plausible but cites G. Theissen, Gospels, 25-42 for it).  

See?

Of course there are many miracles in the Bible. But Jesus is the one who gives the blind new sight. Apart from the ministry of Jesus, the only person to be cured of blindness in the Bible is Saul of Tarsus who recovers from a temporary blindness when scales fall from his eyes (Acts 9:17-18). He has come to see who Jesus is. Jesus came that people might see.



(See Leon Morris, Pillar Commentary on Matthew 11:5 p276)

Calvin on Psalm 72

He is interesting on how the Psalm applies not exclusively but ultimately to Christ:

"Those who would interpret it simply as a prophecy of the kingdom of Christ, seem to put a construction upon the words which does violence to them; and then we must always beware of giving the Jews occasion of making an outcry, as if it were our purpose, sophistically, to apply to Christ those things which do not directly refer to him. But as David, who was anointed king by the commandment of God, knew that the terms upon which he and his posterity possessed the kingdom were, that the power and dominion should at length come to Christ; and as he farther knew that the temporal well-being of the people was, for the time, comprehended in this kingdom, as held by him and his posterity, and that from it, which was only a type or shadow, there should at length proceed something far superior — that is, spiritual and everlasting felicity; knowing, as he did, all this, he justly made the perpetual duration of this kingdom the object of his most intense solicitude, and prayed with the deepest earnestness in its behalf, — reiterating his prayer in his last moments, with the view of distinctly testifying, that of all his cares this was the greatest. What is here spoken of everlasting dominion cannot be limited to one man, or to a few, nor even to twenty ages; but there is pointed out the succession which had its end and its complete accomplishment in Christ."