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Mat 16:4. Γενεὰ, nation[714]) Itself the sign of its own time: for such it was to be in the time of the Messiah; see ch. Mat 11:6.-πονηρὰ, wicked) and perverse.-μοιχαλις, adulterous) accustomed to break the marriage vow, which it ought to have preserved inviolate to God.-σημεῖον, καὶ σημεῖον, κ.τ.λ., a sign, and [no] sign, etc.) A weighty repetition. They prescribe the kind of miracles just as if there were no other kind; therefore[715] all kinds of miracles are denied to them. The miracles which our Lord performed afterwards, were done not for the sake of such as these, but for that of the poor[716] and the sick.[717]-τὸ σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ, the sign of Jonah) that was not from heaven, but from the middle of the earth. Jonah returning from the whale proved his mission to the Ninevites; thus by the resurrection of Jesus, whom they had not before believed, a proof was given to the Jews, that He was the Messiah. He silently intimates, moreover, that after the three days spent in the middle of the earth, there should be plenty of signs from heaven, which were performed by His ascension into heaven, and shall be performed at the destruction of the heavens; cf. ch. Mat 24:30, Act 2:19. Nay more, not even then was it true that were there no signs from heaven; see ch. Mat 3:16.-καὶ καταλιπὼν αὐτοὺς ἀπῆλθε, and He left them and departed) Just severity; see Tit 3:10. Our Lord never left the people in this manner.
[714] E. V. generation.-(I. B.)
[715] Being weary of those miracles, which in great numbers they had seen heretofore; and, therefore, once and again demanding signs from heaven.-Harm., p. 345.
[716] “Popelli,” “the lower classes,” of conventional phraseology.-(I. B.)
[717] And of these miracles, Matthew mentions subsequently scarce one; Mark mentions only that upon the blind man of Bethsaida, ch. Mat 8:22. But as regards teaching, Jesus continued it without intermission.-Harm., p. 346.