Jesus asks what picture would fit His generation, then supplies one from the street. Barnes says Christ here reproves the inconsistency and fickleness of the people of that age. Matthew Henry says Christ had the scribes and Pharisees especially in view, and that "He likens their behaviour to children's play, who being out of temper without reason, quarrel with all the attempts of their fellows to please them." Asking the question first invites the hearers to wonder what they look like before Jesus holds up the mirror.

Jesus answers His own question at once: "It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented" (Matthew 11:16-17). Then He applies it. John came "neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil." The Son of man came "eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners" (Matthew 11:18-19). He ends, "But wisdom is justified of her children" (Matthew 11:19).

The markets (agora) were open public squares. Barnes explains that children there imitated grown-up customs: some would pipe as at a wedding and expect the others to dance, or mourn as at a funeral and expect them to lament, yet "nothing pleased them." The word "generation" (genea) can mean, in Thayer's words, "the whole multitude of men living at the same time."

Commentators fill in the picture in different ways. Barnes and Matthew Henry compare the generation to the sulky children who will not join any game. Gill agrees that the generation are the ones who refused to respond, and he names the calling children as "John the Baptist, Christ and his disciples," compared to children "for their harmlessness and simplicity." Either way the point is the same: the people would accept neither John's call to mourn nor Jesus' call to rejoice.

God sent two very different messengers. John lived strictly and called people to repent; Jesus ate with publicans and sinners. The people rejected both, for opposite reasons (Matthew 11:18-19). That shows the problem was not the messengers but the hearers. Gill says they were "pleased with nothing, with no man's ministry, neither with John's, nor with Christ's." Matthew Henry adds, "The most unspotted innocence will not always be a defence against reproach."

Yet God's wisdom is not defeated by rejection: "wisdom is justified of her children" (Matthew 11:19). Luke shows the two responses side by side: the people and the publicans "justified God," while the Pharisees and lawyers "rejected the counsel of God against themselves" (Luke 7:29-30).