(29-32) This is an evil generation: they seek a sign.--See Notes on Matthew 12:38-42. The words here spoken are clearly an answer to the demand for a sign in Luke 11:16. In St. Matthew the demand and the answer appear in close sequence.

The variations in St. Luke are (1) the omission of the explanation of the manner in which the sign of the prophet Jonah was to be fulfilled by the three days and three nights in the heart of the earth; (2) the position of the reference to the queen of the south, as coming between the sign of Jonah and the rising of the men of Nineveh. In other respects the agreement is more than usually complete.

Verses 29, 30. - And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. Jesus now proceeds - the crowd was, we read, become denser - to reply to the unbelieving suggestion that he should show by a sign from heaven that it was not by the help of Satan and the powers of hell that he was enabled to exercise so mighty a power over the spirits of evil. No sign of the startling nature demanded would be given to the Jews of his day. Evidence in support of his high claims and lofty assertions was then in process of being supplied. What were their eyes beholding day by day, and their ears hearing? Evidence still more complete would vet be given them, but it would avail nothing! Lo, the solemn sign of the Prophet Jonas, who preached to wicked Nineveh after his strange resurrection - that would be given them. It is clear that St. Luke's account of our Lord's words is abbreviated. To make the symbolism of the resurrection-sign complete, we must compare St. Matthew's report (Matthew 12:39, 40), where in plain terms the Lord's death, and the resting in the tomb, and subsequent resurrection is foretold, and compared to the well-known story of the entombment of Jonah at sea for three days. This simile of the Master's was no doubt one repeated on several occasions. It is likely enough that it was so well-known a comparison when St. Luke wrote his memoir of the life that the evangelist felt it was not needful to go into all the details of the comparison; to mention the simile was enough; no Christian individual, household, or congregation but could at once fill up the details originally spoken by the Lord here. In the catacombs the Jonah-story is, owing to its use by our Lord, an oft-repeated and very favourite representation on those long galleries of tombs of Christian men and women of the first three centuries.

11:29-36 Christ promised that there should be one sign more given, even the sign of Jonah the prophet; which in Matthew is explained, as meaning the resurrection of Christ; and he warned them to improve this sign. But though Christ himself were the constant preacher in any congregation, and worked miracles daily among them, yet unless his grace humbled their hearts, they would not profit by his word. Let us not desire more evidence and fuller teaching than the Lord is pleased to afford us. We should pray without ceasing that our hearts and understandings may be opened, that we may profit by the light we enjoy. And especially take heed that the light which is in us be not darkness; for if our leading principles be wrong, our judgment and practice must become more so.And when the people were gathered thick together,.... Upon this woman's lifting up her voice, and saying the things she did; or rather to see what sign he would give, which some had desired Luke 11:16

he began to say, this is an evil generation. The Alexandrian copy, two copies of Beza's, and the Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions read, "this generation is an evil generation"; and also it was an "adulterous one", as is added in Matthew 12:39

they seek a sign; for they had asked one of him, Luke 11:16

and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet; one like unto it: See Gill on Matthew 12:39