Matthew 16:9-10 - Exposition

Christ, in support of his reproof, refers to the two miracles of the multiplication of food, which ought to have assured them of his care and power. Do ye not yet understand? So he asked in Matthew 15:16 , "Are ye also yet without understanding?" Their heart was hardened, and they failed to apprehend the spiritual bearing of the incidents. Neither remember? This was an additional ground for censure, that they even forgot the facts at the very time when they ought to have been recalled to their memory. Jesus reminds them of the distinctive differences between the two miracles, mentioning even the receptacles in which the fragments were collected—in the one case κόφινοι , small baskets, and in the other σπυρίδες , large panniers. It is surely wilful perversity that has deemed these two incidents, thus pointedly disjoined by our Lord, as versions of one story; and yet this is what some modern critics have suggested and upheld.