And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John,
What went you out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?
All Commentaries on Matthew 11:7 Go To Matthew 11
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Wherefore did ye leave your cities, and your houses, and come together all of you into the wilderness? To see a pitiful and flexible kind of person? Nay, this were out of all reason, this is not what is indicated by that earnestness, and the concourse of all men unto the wilderness. So much people and so many cities would not have poured themselves out with so great zeal towards the wilderness and the river Jordan at that time, had ye not expected to see some great and marvellous one, one firmer than any rock. Yea, it was not a reed surely, that ye went out to see shaken by the wind: for the flexible and such as are lightly brought round, and now say one thing, now another, and stand firm in nothing, are most like that.
And see how He omits all wickedness, and mentions this, which then especially haunted them; and removes the suspicion of lightness.
