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Mat_11:8-9. Ἀλλά ] no, on the contrary; it is assumed that what has just been asked was not the intention; Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 38. Klotz, ad Devar. p. 13. It seems, from the fact of his sending those messengers, as if John were (1) a man of hesitating, unstable character, Mat_11:7; or (2) a voluptuary, whose sole concern was how to exchange his condition of hardship for one of luxurious ease, Mat_11:8. Jesus removes any impression of this sort by appealing to His hearers to consult their own hearts as to what they had expected, and what they had found in John. Certainly they had expected neither a man of fickle mind, nor a voluptuary; but what they had looked for, that they had found in him, namely a prophet (Mat_21:26), indeed more than a prophet! Accordingly, there is no apparent reason for regarding (Oppenrieder, Zeitschr. f. luth. Theologie, 1856) the clauses containing a statement of the intention as the rhetorical expression of the result (as if the words were τί ἐξελθόντες εἰς τὴν ἔρ . ἐθεάσασθε ). But even to find in the negative questions an ironical allusion to the character of the Galileans (Keim), is foreign to the connection, especially as the real motive is given in the third of these questions.
Mat_11:9. ναί confirms the προφήτην ἰδεῖν which has just been asked (see the critical remarks), and that in accordance with its result: “Certainly, I tell you (you saw a prophet), and more.” περισσότερον is regarded by Erasmus and Fritzsche as masculine (Symmachus, Gen_49:3 : οὐκ ἔσῃ περισσότερος , excellentior). Nowhere, however, in the New Testament does the simple περισσότερος occur as masculine, and in this instance the interrogative τί tells in favour of its being taken as neuter. Comp. Mat_12:41 f. Therefore to be rendered: something more (Vulgate: plus) than a prophet,—inasmuch, that is, as he is not only the last and greatest of the prophets, but also because he was sent by God to prepare the way of the Messiah through the preaching and baptism of repentance, Mat_11:10. In a different sense, viz. as the source, the aim, and the fulfiller of all prophecy, is Christ more than a prophet. Comp. Kleinschmidt, d. typolog. Citate d. vier Evang. p. 45.