(41) While the Pharisees were gathered together.--St. Mark and St. Luke add here, as St. Matthew does in Matthew 22:46, that "no man dared ask Him any more questions." They have recourse from this time forth to measures of another kind, and fall back upon treachery and false witness. It was now His turn to appear as the questioner, and to convict the Pharisees of resting on the mere surface even of the predictions which they quoted most frequently and most confidently as Messianic.

Verses 41-46. - Christ's question to the Pharisees concerning the Messiah. (Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44.) Verse 41. - Jesus asked them. He spake generally to the assembled crowd in the temple (Mark), addressing no one in particular. The questioned becomes the questioner, and this with a great purpose. He had silenced his opponents, and opened profundities in Scripture hitherto unfathomed; he would now raise them to a higher theology; he would place before them a truth concerning the nature of the Messiah, which, if they received it, would lead them to accept him. It was as it were a last hope. He and the Pharisees had some common ground, which was wanting in the case of the Sadducees and Herodians (comp Acts 23:6); he would use this to support a last appeal. Let us observe the Divine patience and tenderness of Christ. Not to gain a victory over inveterate enemies, not to expose the ignorance of scribe and Pharisee, not to exhibit his own profound knowledge of the inner harmonies of God's Word, does he now put this question. He desires to win acceptance of his claims by the unanswerable argument of the Scripture which they revered; let them consider the exact meaning of a text often quoted, let them weigh each word with reverent care, and they would see that the predicted Messiah was not merely Son of David according to earthly descent, but was Jehovah himself; and that when he claimed to be Son of God, when he asserted, "I and my Father are one," he was vindicating for himself only what the prophet had affirmed of the nature of the Christ. He had, so to speak, hope that some among his hearers would accept this teaching, and save themselves amid that untoward generation. It was when this last hope failed, when he saw nothing but hardened hearts and wilful prejudice, that he uttered the woes and predictions in the following chapter.

22:41-46 When Christ baffled his enemies, he asked what thoughts they had of the promised Messiah? How he could be the Son of David and yet his Lord? He quotes Ps 110:1. If the Christ was to be a mere man, who would not exist till many ages after David's death, how could his forefather call him Lord? The Pharisees could not answer it. Nor can any solve the difficulty except he allows the Messiah to be the Son of God, and David's Lord equally with the Father. He took upon him human nature, and so became God manifested in the flesh; in this sense he is the Son of man and the Son of David. It behoves us above all things seriously to inquire, What think we of Christ? Is he altogether glorious in our eyes, and precious to our hearts? May Christ be our joy, our confidence, our all. May we daily be made more like to him, and more devoted to his service.While the Pharisees were gathered together,.... Or rather, "when" they were gathered together, and while they continued so, before they left him: for this is to be understood not of their gathering together, to consult privately about him; this is expressed before in Matthew 22:34 but of their gathering together about Christ, to hear what answer he would return to the question their learned doctor would put to him: and he having given an answer to that, which the Scribe was obliged to allow was a good one; and he having no more to say, Christ directs his discourse not to him individually, but to all the Pharisees before he parted with them, and puts a question to them, in his turn; and which would lead on to another they could not answer, and they must therefore leave him once more with great shame and confusion,

Jesus asked them: as the lawyer put a question to him suitable to his office and character, Christ puts another to the Pharisees suitable to his office and character, as a Gospel preacher; suggesting by it, that salvation was not by the law, and the works of it, which they set up for doctors and interpreters of, and advocates for, but by the Messiah, who was promised to their fathers, and they expected.