Matthew 16:3

ὑποκριταὶ omitted before τὸ μὲν πρόσωπον and (Matthew 16:4) τοῦ προφήτου after Ἰωνᾶ.

3. στυγνάζων, late. Polybius uses στυγνότης of the weather.

τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Perhaps Jesus and His questioners were looking across the lake towards the cliffs of Gergesa, with the sky red from the reflected sunset. In Luke the signs are ‘a cloud rising in the west’ and the blowing of the ‘south wind.’

σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν. The meaning of passing events—some of which point in many ways to the fulfilment of prophecy, and to the presence of Christ among men; others to the overthrow of the national existence through the misguided passions of the people, and the absence of true spiritual life. In Luke 13, two events of typical importance are reported to Jesus who shews how they are σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν: they were not, as the Jews interpreted them, instances of individual punishment for sin, but they were warnings to the nation. Perhaps no clearer proof of this want of political or spiritual insight, and of blindness to facts, could be given than the pretension to political liberty made by the Jews, John 8:33, οὐδενὶ δεδουλεύκαμεν πώποτε. Neither Babylonish captivity, nor tribute to Caesar, nor presence of a Roman Procurator were σημεῖα to them.

The work and life of Christ were in the highest sense σημεῖα. He was Himself σημεῖον�.