49 but they, when they saw him walking on the sea, supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out;
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
They supposed it had been a spirit - That is, by whom the storm had been raised.
But when they saw him walking on the sea,.... See Gill on Matthew 14:26;
they supposed it had been a spirit; a phantom, a spectre, an apparition, a nocturnal demon:
and cried out; as men affrighted at the sight, and fearing they should be hurt by it, or that it portended some evil to them; See Gill on Matthew 14:26.
But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out--"for fear" (Matthew 14:26). He would appear to them at first like a dark moving speck upon the waters; then as a human figure; but in the dark tempestuous sky, and not dreaming that it could be their Lord, they take it for a spirit. Compare Luke 24:37.
*More commentary available at chapter level.