Ver. 1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came] Came forth, saith St Mark, to wit, out of the coasts of Magdala, as soon as ever our Saviour arrived there, to quarrel him, and keep him from doing good. So active are the devil’s instruments to hinder the kingdom of God and the good of souls. Truth never wants an adversary; she goes seldom without a scratched face, as the proverb is. The Pharisees and Sadducees, though at deadly difference between themselves, yet can easily combine against Christ. So to this day the priests disparage the Jesuits, the Jesuits the priests, the priests again the monks, the monks the friars, but they can all conspire against Protestants, whom they jointly persecute. Dogs, though they fight never so fierce, and mutually intertear one another, yet if a hare run by they give over, and run after her. Martial makes mention of a hare on the Sicilian shore, that having hardly escaped the hounds that hunted her, was devoured by a sea dog; whereupon he brings her in thus complaining: “ In me omnis terraeque aviumque marisque rapina est: Forsitan et coeli, si canis astra tenet.” Tempting desired him] Or questioned him to and fro, sifted him by interrogatories, pretending to be his friends, and to seek satisfaction only. All this savour strongly of putrid hypocrisy, quae ipsis domestica erat virtus, as Aretius. Socinus did in like sort set upon Zanchius. “He was,” saith Zanchius, “a learned man, and of unblamable conversation, but full of heresies, which yet he never propounded to me otherwise than by way of question, as seeming desirous to be better informed.” By this subtle means he drew away many, and sought to work upon Zanchius, as did also Matthaeus Gribaldus, and some such others. But when they could not prevail, they brake friendship with him, and he with them, for the which he praiseth God from the bottom of his heart. Show them a sign] Them, by all means, as more worshipful men than the multitude, such as might merit an extraordinary sign. See here their satanical arrogance. So Herod would see our Saviour, that he might see a sign from him. He looked upon him no otherwise than upon some common magician, that would sure show him his best tricks. Thus these hypocrites here would gladly be gratified, but they were deceived. επηρωτησαν, vicissim interrogabant. Homo fuit p1enus diversarum haereseon, quas tamen mihi nunquam proponebat nisi disputandi causa, et semper interrogans quasi cuperet doceri. Zaneh. αυτοις, ipsis, i. q. solis.
Ver. 2. When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair, &c.] q.d. Are you so weatherwise (which yet is not your profession)? are ye so skilful in nature, and yet so ignorant of Scripture, as not to know that now is the time for the Messiah to come, and that I am he? Surely you are either notorious sots, or deep dissemblers, or both, in seeming so curiously to search after the truth, which yet you neither care to know, nor obey.
Ver. 3. Can you not discern the sign of the times?] The men of Issachar were in great account with David, because “they had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do,” 1 Chronicles 12:32 “A prudent man foreseeth an evil, and hideth himself,” Proverbs 22:3. He foreseeth it; not by divination, or star gazing, but by a judicious collection and connection of causes and consequences: as, if God be the same that ever, as holy, just, powerful, &c.; if sin be the same that ever, as foul, loathsome, pernicious, &c.; then such and such events will follow upon such and such courses. As God hath given us signs, and fore tokens of a tempest, so he hath also of an ensuing judgment, and blames those that take not notice thereof; sending them to school to the stork and swallow, Jeremiah 8:7. If Elias see but a cloud as a hand arising from Carmel, he can tell that great store of rain will follow, that the whole heaven will anon be covered. Finer tempers are sooner sensible of change of weather. Moses, as more acquainted with God, spies his wrath at first setting out: so might we have done ere it came to this, and have redeemed a great part of our present sorrows, had we had our eyes in our heads, Ecclesiastes 2:14, had we not been of those wilful ones, who seek straws to put out their eyes also, as Bernard hath it, or that wink for the filty talk, saith Justin Martyr, that they may not see, when some unsavoury potion is ministered unto them. Qui festucam quaerunt unde oculos sibi eruant. Bern. εκουσιως καταπινοντες το πικρον.
Ver. 4. A wicked and adulterous generation] [See Trapp on “Mt 12:39”] The same wedge serves the same knot. They shall have no new answer from Christ, till they have made better use of the old. Let them return to thee, not thou to them, Jeremiah 15:19. And he left them, and departed] Because he saw his sweet words were even spilt upon them. Frustra lavantur Aethiopes et certatur cum hypocritis: none are more obstinate and obdurate.