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The Demand for a Sign

16 Now when the Pharisees[a] and Sadducees[b] came to test Jesus,[c] they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.[d] He[e] said, “When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather, because the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and darkening.’[f] You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky,[g] but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Then[h] he left them and went away.

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Footnotes

  1. Matthew 16:1 sn See the note on Pharisees in 3:7.
  2. Matthew 16:1 sn See the note on Sadducees in 3:7.
  3. Matthew 16:1 tn The object of the participle πειράζοντες (peirazontes) is not given in the Greek text but has been supplied here for clarity.
  4. Matthew 16:1 sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.
  5. Matthew 16:2 tn Grk “But answering, he said to them.” The construction has been simplified in the translation and δέ (de) has not been translated.
  6. Matthew 16:3 tn Or “red and gloomy” (L&N 14.56).
  7. Matthew 16:3 tn Grk “The face of the sky you know how to discern.”
  8. Matthew 16:4 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

10 Immediately he got into a boat[a] with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.[b]

The Demand for a Sign

11 Then the Pharisees[c] came and began to argue with Jesus, asking for[d] a sign from heaven[e] to test him. 12 Sighing deeply in his spirit he said, “Why does this generation look for a sign? I tell you the truth,[f] no sign will be given to this generation.”

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 8:10 sn See the note at Mark 1:19 for a description of the first-century fishing boat discovered in 1986 near Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.
  2. Mark 8:10 sn The exact location of Dalmanutha is uncertain. It is mentioned nowhere else in the NT. The parallel passage in Matt 15:39 reads either “Magdala” (which is on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee) or “Magadan” (which is the better attested reading but is otherwise unknown). A small anchorage north of Magdala and west of Capernaum investigated in 1970 during a period of low lake levels in the Sea of Galilee has been suggested as the possible location of Dalmanutha (M. Nun, “Ancient Anchorages and Harbors in the Sea of Galilee,” Nature and Land 5 (1971): 212-19) but there is no scholarly consensus.
  3. Mark 8:11 sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.
  4. Mark 8:11 tn Grk “seeking from him.” The participle ζητοῦντες (zētountes) shows the means by which the Pharisees argued with Jesus.
  5. Mark 8:11 sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.
  6. Mark 8:12 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amēn), I say to you.”