Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Matthew 11:7

"And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the wind?" — Matthew 11:7 (ASV)

Jesus used this opportunity to speak to the crowd about John and to defend him. The rhetorical questions are a gently ironic way of eliminating obviously false answers in order to give the truth in vv.10–11. A “reed” (cane grass, found in abundance along the Jordan) swaying in the wind suggests a fickle person, tossed about in his judgment by the winds of public opinion or private misfortune. Certainly the people did not go out to witness such an ordinary spectacle. Nor did they go out into the desert to find a rich man dressed “in fine clothes” . “Those who are... in kings’ palaces” is a sly cut at the man who was keeping John in prison.

Jesus was speaking in this way to disarm suspicion among the people that John’s question (v.3) might betray signs of fickleness (v.7) or undisciplined weakness (v.8) in him. Not so, responds Jesus; the man the people went out to see was neither unstable nor faithless. His question arose not from personal weakness or failure but from misunderstanding about the nature of the Messiah, owing to John’s place in salvation history (see comment on v.11).