And they reasoned with themselves,.... Or "they thought with themselves", as the Syriac version; or "within themselves", as the Vulgate Latin, though they did not express it; or "one with another", as the Arabic version; they took counsel together, and debated the matter among themselves, and reasoned after this manner:
saying, if we shall say from heaven; which was what, in their own consciences, they believed to be true,
he will say, why then believed ye him not? in what he said concerning the Messiah; which if they had, as they should, there would have been no reason for such a question they had put;