The first question completes the family list: His sisters still live right there in town. Gill explains they "Lived in the same town with them, were well known by them, and familiar with them." The second question circles back to where they began (Matthew 13:54), but now with "then." Since His family was so ordinary, they reasoned, where could all this have come from? Gill says that because He had not learned it from their schools or His relatives, "they could not devise from whence he should have them."

"And they were offended in him" (Matthew 13:57). Jesus answered with a proverb: "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house" (Matthew 13:57). Then the text gives the result: "he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). Mark adds 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).

"Offended" translates eskandalizonto, from skandalizo. Thayer explains that to be offended in someone is "to see in another what I disapprove of and what hinders me from acknowledging his authority." The verb pictures tripping over a stumbling block. The townspeople tripped over Jesus' ordinary family.

Barnes is careful about why He did few miracles there: "We are not to suppose that his power was limited by the belief or unbelief of people." Rather, they were so set against Him that more miracles would not have convinced them; he says they would have blamed them on derangement, sorcery, or the devil. Gill suggests that, rather than believe His power came from God, they may have suspected it came from the devil, or else stumbled at His humble birth.

The crowd's "Whence then?" is the same question they asked in Matthew 13:54, but now it has hardened. What began as astonishment ends as an objection. They had all the evidence they needed, His wisdom and His works, but they would not follow it to its source.

The result was loss, not for Jesus but for them. He was still able, as Mark shows when He healed a few sick people there (Mark 6:5). But Matthew says plainly that their unbelief shaped what they received (Matthew 13:58). Matthew Henry writes, "Unbelief is the great hinderance to Christ's favours."