Matthew 11:9 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Ver. 7-9. Luke repeating the same story, Luke 7:24-26, instead of they that wear soft clothing, saith, they that are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings courts. Our Saviour here doth tacitly imply, that the ministers of the gospel should neither be uncertain and inconstant men, nor yet delicate men, affecting splendid apparel or delicate diet, but minding their great work, viz. the revelation of the will of God. But the scope of his present speech here, was to confirm the multitude in their good opinion of John, and to keep them from being scandalized, or altering their opinion of him, because he was now in prison. All men held John as a prophet, Matthew 15:5; 21:26. You went out (saith our Saviour) into the wilderness to hear John preach: you did not go out to see some idle, light man, such as a reed shaken with the wind, nor yet to see a man clothed gorgeously, (the wilderness is no place for such persons, they are to be found in the courts and palaces of princes), you went out to hear one revealing the will of God to you. Nor did you mistake. He was a prophet. Not that Prophet of which Moses spake, Deuteronomy 18:15. But a prophet; yea, and more than a prophet; one that hath taught you what none of the prophets ever could teach you, that I, the Messias, am come; they could only tell you that I should come.