doctrines, persons, signs, times — all of which correspond among themselves : wherefore different signs suit different times. Those signs, less splendid indeed, btit such as were altogether beneficial to man on earth (see ch. ix. 6), were suitable to the Messiah then being on earth; see ch. viii. 17, Luke ix. 54. Wherefore it was incumbent upon them to obtain proofs, not from heaven, but from themselves : see Luke xii. 57. For the same reason, after His ascension our Lord did not exhibit signs on earth, as He had previously done.1 — ou S-jvaodi ; are ye not able ?) sc. to distinguish sign from sign : — said with astonishment. If you wished it, you could do so most fully : as it is, you are pre vented from doing so by a voluntary blindness.
4. Tsvsa, nation2) Itself the sign of its own time : for such it was to be in the time of the Messiah ; see ch. xi. 6. — vovripa, wicked) and perverse. — ^o/^aX/V, adulterous) accustomed to break the marriage vow, which it ought to have preserved in violate to God. — or^tfhVj xal ffr,/j,eTov, x.r.X., a sign, and [no] sign, etc.) A weighty repetition. They prescribe the kind of miracles just as if there were no other kind ; therefore3 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 poor4 and the sick.5 — rb aqpiTov 'luva, the sign of JonaJi) 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
1 Nor will hereafter signs be wanting from heaven. — B. G. V.
2 E. V. generation.— (I. B.)
3 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.
* " Popelli," " the lower classes," of conventional phraseology. — (I. B.) 5 And of these miracles, Matthew mentions subsequently scarce one ; Mark mentions only that upon the blind man of Bethsaida, ch. viii. 22. But as regards teaching, Jesus continued it without intermission. — Harm., p. 346.