Mark 8:11

And the Pharisees Our Lord seems purposely to have avoided sailing to Bethsaida or Capernaum, which lay a little north of Magdala, and which had become the head-quarters of the Pharisees; but they had apparently watched for His arrival, and now "came forth" to meet Him accompanied for the first time by the Sadducees (Matthew 16:1), their rivals and enemies.

began They had made their arrangements for a decisive contest, which began with a demand for a sign.

a sign from heaven The same request had already been twice proffered. (1) After the first cleansing of the Temple (John 2:18); (2) after the feeding of the Five Thousand (John 6:30); and (3) again shortly after the walking through the cornfields (Matthew 12:38). By such a "sign" was meant an outward and visible luminous appearance in the sky or some visible manifestation of the Shechînah, the credentials of a prophet. They asked in effect, "Give us bread from heaven, as Moses did, or signs in the sun and moon like Joshua, or call down thunder and hail like Samuel, or fire and rain like Elijah, or make the sun turn back on the dial like Isaiah, or let us hear the Bath-Kôl, the -daughter of the Voice," that we may believe Thee."