Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Matthew · About this commentary
Are You the One Who Comes?
Matthew 11:1-6
1 When Jesus had finished directing his twelve disciples, he departed from there to teach and preach in their cities. · WEB
The forerunner sends from prison to ask whether he was right — and gets a list of works rather than a yes.
Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to him, "Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?" Matthew 11:2–3.
The man asking is the one who saw the heavens open and heard the voice Matthew 3:16–17, who had said he was not worthy to carry this man's sandals, and who is now in Herod's cell. The question is not a rhetorical device to instruct his disciples; the Gospel says he heard what was being done and sent to ask.
What had gone wrong is visible in his own preaching. He had announced a winnowing fork, an ax at the root, and a fire for the chaff Matthew 3:10–12 — and what he is hearing about is healings and meals with tax collectors, while he sits in prison and the wicked king is untouched. The problem is not that the reports are unimpressive but that they do not match.
That is worth sitting with rather than explaining away. The greatest man born of women, according to the next paragraph, is in genuine doubt because God is not doing what he expected in the order he expected it.
"Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them" Matthew 11:4–5.
The answer is not a claim but an inventory, and every item on it is quoted from Isaiah's descriptions of the age to come Isaiah 35:5–6 Isaiah 61:1. John is being handed the evidence and left to do the arithmetic himself, which is a form of respect.
And there is something in what is not quoted. Isaiah's passage about the poor and the broken-hearted goes on to proclaim the day of vengeance — and the citation stops short of it. The judgment John was waiting for is not denied; it is not yet.
"Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me" Matthew 11:6.
The beatitude attached is gentle and it is aimed. It does not say blessed is he who has no doubts; it says blessed is the person who is not tripped up by the way this is actually unfolding. Offense is the risk being named, and the man most at risk of it is the one who announced him.
settled What this mark means