Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 16

The Pharisees also with the Sadducees — The presence of members of the latter sect, who do not appear elsewhere in our Lord’s Galilean ministry, is noticeable. It is probably explained by Mark’s version of the warning in Matthew 16:6, where “the leaven of Herod” appears as equivalent to “the leaven of the Sadducees” in Matthew’s report. The Herodians were the Galilean Sadducees, and the union of the two hostile parties was the continuation of the alliance that had begun after our Lord’s protest against the false reverence for the Sabbath, which was common to both parties (Mark 3:6).

That he would show them a sign from heaven — The signs and wonders that had been performed on earth were not enough for the questioners. There might be collusion or a power—like that implied in the charge of “casting out demons by Beelzebub”—that was preternatural, but not divine. What they asked for was a sign like Samuel’s thunder from the clear blue sky (1 Samuel 12:18) or Elijah’s fire from heaven (1 Kings 18:38). Or, possibly, following the train of thought suggested by the discourse at Capernaum, they were now definitively asking for what they had only hinted at before (John 6:30–31): bread, not multiplied on earth, but coming straight from heaven.

When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather — It is remarkable that some of the best manuscripts, including the Vatican and Sinaitic, omit these suggestive words entirely. However, given their singular originality, it is difficult to imagine them as a later transcriber's interpolation. We must therefore ask how to explain the omission. The words are not found in Mark, which shows that some reports of our Lord’s answer to the Pharisees did not include them. Perhaps the transcriber was unable to understand their meaning. It is also possible that this feeling, or the desire to bring the reports in the two Gospels into closer agreement, influenced the writers of these two manuscripts.

Turning to the words as they stand in the received text, we first note their form. The insertion of the words in italics somewhat mars the colloquial abruptness of the original: Fair weather, for the sky is red. Secondly, the use of “sky” instead of “heaven” hides the point of the answer. In substance, He answers, “You watch the heaven and are weather-wise about coming storms or sunshine. If your eyes were open to watch the signs of the spiritual firmament, you would find enough tokens of the coming sunshine of God’s truth—the rising of the day-spring from on high. You would also find enough tokens of the darkness of the coming storm, the ‘foul weather’ of God’s judgments.”

Even the fact that the redness of the sky is the same in both cases is not without significance. The flush, glow, and excitement that pervaded people's minds was at once a prognostic of a brighter day following the one now closing, and a presage of the storm and tempest in which that day would end.

It is a singular instance of how the habit of minute criticism can stunt or even kill the power of discernment that depends on imagination, that Strauss considered words so full of profound and suggestive meaning to be “absolutely unintelligible” (Leben Jesu, II. viii. p. 85).

In the outward framework of the parable, the weather signs of Palestine seem to have been the same as those of England. A clear red evening sky is a prophecy of a bright morning. The morning red—not simply “red,” but with the indescribable, threatening aspect implied in “lowering,” the frown of the sky, so to speak (compare Mark 10:22, where the same word is translated “grieved”)—makes people look for storms.

The sign of the prophet Jonah—See Note on Matthew 12:39. As given by St. Mark, the answer was a more absolute refusal: No sign (i.e., none of the kind that was demanded) shall be given to this generation.

They had forgotten —Better, they forgot. St. Mark, with his usual precision in detail, states that they had only “one loaf” with them. Either the suddenness of their Lord’s departure had deprived them of their customary forethought, or, perhaps, they were beginning to depend wrongly on the wonder-working power, as though it would be used, not as before to supply the needs of the famished multitude, but as making that forethought unnecessary for themselves.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees — The form of this warning was clearly determined by the event that had just occurred. The Master saw the disciples’ perplexed looks and heard their self-reproaching or mutually accusing whispers, and He used their confusion as the basis for a proverb that was like a condensed parable.

As St. Mark records the words, they are: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. If we must choose, we can believe this was the form in which they were actually spoken. St. Matthew, or the source he followed, substituted the better-known Sadducees for the less-familiar Herodians.

The tetrarch's language, as has been shown (see note on Matthew 14:2), implies that Sadduceeism had been the prevailing belief of his life. Consequently, the current of Jewish political—and even religious—sympathies naturally led the Sadducean priests to associate with the scribes attached to the tetrarch's party. These priests, like Caiaphas, were seeking the favor of the Roman rulers .