And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
Christ stopped his praise of John to condemn those who had both John's ministry and his own among them and profited not at all. The Jewish people of that generation were as barren and unprofitable as could be; nothing is more absurd than to have good preaching and be never the better for it.
AI summary
Commenting on Matthew 11:16-24
For John came neither eating nor drinking,.... This and the following verse are an explanation of the foregoing "parable"; and this shows, that John and his disciples are the persons that mourned, of which his austere life was a proof: for when he "came", being sent of God, and appeared as a public preacher, he was "neither eating nor drinking"; not that he did not...