What Did You Go on the Wilderness to See?

Jesus is giving these coded cultural language to tell them and refocus them on John as a prophet in the wilderness. That's reminding us of the voice in the wilderness crying out, prepare the way of the Lord. And then Jesus also highlights here, behold, I send my messenger before your face, which is a quotation not just from Isaiah, but from Malachi. In Jewish sources, various Jewish sources, that passage gets interpreted in all kinds of fantastic ways.