For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

For John has come neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a demon.

For John came, taking no food or drink, and they say, He has an evil spirit.

For, when John came, neither eating nor drinking, people said 'He has a demon in him';

For John came neither eating nor drinking - Leading a very austere and mortified life: and yet, he did not receive him. A sinner will not be persuaded that what he has no mind to imitate can come from God. There are some who will rather blame holiness itself, than esteem it in those whom they do not like.
He hath a devil - He is a vile hypocrite, influenced by a demon to deceive and destroy the simple.

For John came neither eating nor drinking,.... This and the following verse are an explanation of the foregoing "parable"; and this shows, that John and his disciples are the persons that mourned, of which his austere life was a proof: for when he "came", being sent of God, and appeared as a public preacher, he was "neither eating nor drinking"; not that he did not eat or drink at all, otherwise he could not have lived, and discharged his office: but he ate sparingly, very little; and what he did eat and drink, was not the common food and drink of men; he neither ate bread nor drank wine, but lived upon locusts and wild honey; he excused all invitations to people's houses, and shunned all feasts and entertainments; he abstained from all free and sociable conversation with men, in eating and drinking: and though the Scribes and Pharisees pretended to much abstinence and frequent fastings, yet they did not care to follow his very severe way of living, and lament, in answer to his mournful ditty; but in a calumniating way,
they say he hath a devil; is a demoniac, a madman, one that is unsociable and melancholy; under a delusion of Satan, and influenced by him to abstain from proper food and company of men, under a pretence of religion.

John came neither eating nor drinking. At feasts. He lived abstemiously and austerely.
He hath a demon. They accused him of being under the influence of evil spirits; of being a crank, or fanatic.

John came neither eating nor drinking - In a rigorous austere way, like Elijah. And they say, He hath a devil - Is melancholy, from the influence of an evil spirit.