Matthew 11:7

7. What went ye out into the wilderness The wilderness of Judea, bordering on the Jordan, where John preached and baptized. Our Lord asks in effect what was their expectation in regard to the true character of John, to whose preaching and baptism they had resorted. Reed shaken with the wind? Did you expect, what John now appears to you, a trembling vacillator, shivering in every breeze of doubt and difficulty? Such is not John’s true character. And here our Lord, with singular beauty, borrows his illustration from the reeds which lined the banks of the Jordan, and shivered in the breezes that swept it.

Both Watson and Stier argue that John could not have sent his message to relieve his own doubts, because our Lord here denies that he was a reed shaken by the wind, or a soft, pliant man. Very true. But what suggested those particular denials? Plainly, the understanding that John’s mind is now apparently wavering; which understanding is based upon the assumption that the inquiry is his own. Our Lord admits the assumption, but denies the inference; and then he proceeds (10-14) to state John’s real case, with all its greatness, its littleness, and its palliations.