The people were genuinely amazed. Their first question asks where His teaching came from. Their second wonders at the wisdom "given unto him" and the mighty works done "by his hands." Gill explains the puzzle: "they had known him from the beginning: he had lived long among them, and they knew he had not learnt of men." Those hands, Gill notes, "were but the other day employed in servile work, and mechanical operations." Matthew Henry points out that they acknowledged the two great proofs of His mission, His wisdom and His mighty works. The questions were good ones. But as Mark 6:3 shows, the people answered them with what they already knew about His family instead of following them to faith.

The townspeople answered their own question with more questions: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary...?" (Mark 6:3). "And they were offended at him." Jesus replied with a proverb: "A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house" (Mark 6:4). Mark adds that "he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them," and that "he marvelled because of their unbelief" (Mark 6:5-6).

Jesus taught "in the synagogue" on "the sabbath day," the local meeting place where Scripture was read and explained each week. The "mighty works" are dynameis in Greek, the plural of the same word translated "virtue," or power, in Mark 5:30. The verb "were astonished" is in the imperfect tense, a form often used for continuing action.

Barnes, in his notes on Matthew's parallel, explains the reaction: "People always look with envy on those of their own rank who advance pretentions to uncommon wisdom or superior power." Matthew's account records the same questions: "Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?" (Matthew 13:54).

The people of Jesus' hometown asked exactly the right question: "From whence hath this man these things?" Mark's Gospel has been answering it from the start. Mark has just shown that power healing a woman and raising a girl (Mark 5:29-30, 41-42). But familiarity got in the way. Matthew Henry observes that "familiarity in the younger years breeds a contempt, the advancement of one that was an inferior begets envy."

The scene shows that wonder alone does not lead to faith. The crowd was "astonished" and still "offended" (Mark 6:2-3). Henry adds, "The unbelief of those that enjoy the means of grace, is a most amazing thing." Even Jesus "marvelled" at it (Mark 6:6).