Jesus saved Peter first and then asked the question. The rescue came "immediately"; the correction came while Peter was safe in His hand. Gill notes that Jesus "does not say, O thou unbeliever!" because "some faith he had, though but small." The question asks Peter to look at why he wavered. Peter had Christ's own word, "Come," and had already been held up on the water. Barnes says Peter "had less real faith than he supposed; more ardor than his faith would justify," and that in this way "he was suffered to learn his own character, and his dependence on Jesus."

Peter gives no recorded answer. The text moves straight on: "And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased" (Matthew 14:32). Then "they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33). The answer to Peter's doubt was who Jesus is. Barnes observes, "He that has power over winds and waves has all power."

"Doubt" translates edistasas, from distazo, which Thayer defines simply as "to doubt, waver." It appears only twice in the New Testament: here and in Matthew 28:17, where some of the disciples who worshipped the risen Jesus still "doubted." Gill describes it as to "waver, fluctuate, or wast divided between faith and fear."

"O thou of little faith" is one Greek word, oligopistos, which Thayer defines as "of little faith, trusting too little." Jesus uses it several times in Matthew: about worry over clothing (Matthew 6:30), in an earlier storm (Matthew 8:26), here, and when the disciples worried about bread (Matthew 16:8).

Jesus' question is a rebuke, but it comes wrapped in a rescue. He did not let Peter sink to teach him a lesson. He caught him first. Matthew Henry writes, "When we look off from Christ, and look at the greatness of opposing difficulties, we shall begin to fall; but when we call to him, he will stretch out his arm, and save us." Gill notes that even as Peter cried "Lord, save me," he was "still having so much faith in Christ, that he was able to save him in the last extremity."

Mark tells of Jesus walking on the sea but not of Peter's walk (Mark 6:45-52). Matthew includes it, and the scene ends in worship and confession: "Of a truth thou art the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33). Henry suggests that Christ bade Peter come not only that he might know his Lord's power, but "that he might know his own weakness." Little faith, held in Jesus' hand, became the occasion for the disciples to see who He is.