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Mat_11:16 ff. After this high testimony respecting the Baptist, we have now a painful charge against the men of his time, whom, in fact, neither John nor Himself is able to satisfy. In expressive, appropriate, and certainly original terms (in answer to Hilgenfeld), He compares the existing generation to children reproaching their playfellows for not being inclined to chime in either with their merry or their lugubrious strains. Usually the Jews are supposed to be represented by those refractory playmates, so that Jesus and John have necessarily to be understood as corresponding to the children who play the cheerful music, and who mourn (Fritzsche, Oppenrieder, Köster in the Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 346 f.). But (1) the words expressly intimate that the children with their music and lamentation represented the γενεά , to which John and Jesus stand opposed, so that the latter must therefore correspond to the ἑτέροις who are reproached by the παιδία . (2) If the arrangement of the passage is not to be arbitrarily disturbed, the thrice repeated λέγουσιν must be held to prove that, since those who speak in Mat_11:18-19 are Jews, it is to these also that the children correspond who are introduced as speaking in Mat_11:16. (3) If we were to suppose that Jesus and John were represented by those children, then, according to Mat_11:18-19, it would be necessary to reverse the order of the words in Mat_11:17, so as to run thus: ἐθρηνήσαμεν ὑμῖν … ηὐλήσαμεν , etc. Consequently the ordinary explanation of the illustration is wrong. The correct interpretation is this: the παιδία are the Jews; the ἕτεροι are John and Jesus; first came John, who was far too rigid an ascetic to suit the tastes of the free-living Jews (Joh_5:35); then came Jesus, and He, again, did not come up to their ascetic and hierarchical standard, and was too lax, in their opinion. The former did not dance to their music; the latter did not respond to their lamentation (similarly de Wette with a slight deviation, Ewald, Bleek, Keim).
παιδίοις , κ . τ . λ .] The allusion is to children who in their play (according to Ewald, it was playing at a riddle) imitate the way in which grown-up people give expression to their joy and their sorrow; Rosenmüller, Morgenl. in loco.
The flute was played at weddings and dancings.
ἐκόψασθε ] beating upon the breast was the ordinary indication of grief; Eze_20:43; Nah_2:8; Mat_24:30; Luk_18:13; Hom. Il. xviii. 31; Plat. Phaed. p. 60 A, al.; Herod. vi. 58; Diod. Sic. i. 44; Köster, Erläut. p. 92 f.
τοῖς ἑπέροις ] the other children present, who are not among the number of their playmates.