Jesus answered. Jesus did not directly respond to the father's appeal, nor repel the Pharisees'scoffs. In sorrow and indignation he goes at once to the root of the evil. O faithless and perverse generation!
He seems to include in this denunciation all who were present—the father, scribes, people, apostles, especially the nine. Want of faith appertained to all. He often refers to the general body of his bearers by the term generation (comp.
Matthew 11:16; Matthew 12:29, etc.). Perverse. The word is used by Moses in his great song in reference to those who dealt corruptly; here it applies to persons who took a distorted view of Christ's work and teaching, and against light and knowledge obstinately persisted in their infidelity.
How long shall I be with you?… suffer you? The sad question is not that of one who wants his work finished and his time of departure hastened; rather, it shows his sorrow and regret at the slowness of faith, the hardness of heart, which yet, notwithstanding all his teaching and his miracles, had not been overcome.
How much longer was this to continue? Was this forgetfulness of the past, this dulness of comprehension, to last forever? Did they wish to wear out his long suffering, to exhaust his condescension? With Divine impatience at man's obduracy, he makes this mournful inquiry.
Bring ( φε ìρετε, bring ye) him hither to me. He speaks to the attendants or the crowd, and bids them bring the boy to him, not to the disciples. The prophet's staff in Gehazi's hand could not awake the dead; Elisha himself must undertake the work (2 Kings 4:31); so if the desired miracle had to he performed, Christ himself must do it.
In spite of his grief and disappointment, he does not withhold relief, in the midst of wrath he remembers mercy.