Matthew 11:16

Children [π α ι δ ι ο ι ς]. Diminutive, little children. The Rev. Donald Fraser gives the picture simply and vividly : "He pictured a group of little children playing at make - believe marriages and funerals. First they acted a marriage procession; some of them piping as on instruments of music, while the rest were expected to leap and dance. In a perverse mood, however, these last did not respond, but stood still and looked discontented. So the little pipers changed their game and proposed a funeral. They began to imitate the loud wailing of eastern mourners. But again they were thwarted, for their companions refused to chime in with the mournful cry and to beat their breasts.... So the disappointed children complained : 'We piped unto you and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn. Nothing pleases you. If you don't want to dance, why don't you mourn ?... It is plain that you are in bad humor, and determined not to be pleased'" (" Metaphors in the Gospels "). The issue is between the Jews (this generation) and the children of wisdom, Matthew 5:9.

Market - places [α γ ο ρ α ι ς]. From ajgeirw, to assemble. Wyc., renders cheepynge; compare cheapside, the place for buying and selling; for the word cheap had originally no reference to small price, but meant simply barter or price. The primary conception in the Greek word has nothing to do with buying and selling. Agora is an assembly; then the place of assembly. The idea of a place of trade comes in afterward, and naturally, since trade plants itself where people habitually gather. Hence the Roman Forum was devoted, not only to popular and judicial assemblies, but to commercial purposes, especially of bankers. The idea of trade gradually becomes the dominant one in the word. In Eastern cities the markets are held in bazaars and streets, rather than in squares. In these public places the children would be found playing. Compare Zechariah 8:5.