{Bare him witness} (emarturoun). Imperfect active, perhaps
inchoative. They all began to bear witness that the rumours were
not exaggerations ( 4:14 ) as they had supposed, but had
foundation in fact if this discourse or its start was a fair
sample of his teaching. The verb marture(935c) is a very old and
common one. It is frequent in Acts, Paul's Epistles, and the
Johannine books. The substantive martur is seen in our English
martyr, one who witnesses even by his death to his faith in
Christ. {And wondered} (kai ethaumazon). Imperfect active also,
perhaps inchoative also. They began to marvel as he proceeded
with his address. This verb is an old one and common in the
Gospels for the attitude of the people towards Jesus. {At the
words of grace} (epi tois logois t(8873) charitos). See on 烊u
1:30; 2:52| for this wonderful word charis so full of meaning
and so often in the N.T. The genitive case (case of genus or
kind) here means that the words that came out of the mouth of
Jesus in a steady stream (present tense, ekporeuomenois) were
marked by fascination and charm. They were "winning words" as the
context makes plain, though they were also "gracious" in the
Pauline sense of "grace." There is no necessary antithesis in the
ideas of graceful and gracious in these words of Jesus. {Is not
this Joseph's son?} (Ouchi huios estin I(9373)(8870)h houtos;). Witness
and wonder gave way to bewilderment as they began to explain to
themselves the situation. The use of ouchi intensive form of
ouk in a question expects the answer "yes." Jesus passed in
Nazareth as the son of Joseph as Luke presents him in  3:23 . He
does not stop here to correct this misconception because the
truth has been already amply presented in  1:28-38  2:49 . This
popular conception of Jesus as the son of Joseph appears also in
 Joh 1:45 . The puzzle of the people was due to their previous
knowledge of Jesus as the carpenter ( Mr 6:3 ; the carpenter's
son,  Mt 13:55 ). For him now to appear as the Messiah in
Nazareth where he had lived and laboured as the carpenter was a
phenomenon impossible to credit on sober reflection. So the mood
of wonder and praise quickly turned with whispers and nods and
even scowls to doubt and hostility, a rapid and radical
transformation of emotion in the audience.