Luke 24:25

‘And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”

The Stranger's reply came back to them as a rebuke. Not because it was harshly uttered, but because He apparently had more confidence in God's promises than they had. It opened with a gentle remonstrance. ‘O foolish ones.' We can sense the tenderness and slight exasperation that lies behind it. ‘Fools' would be too strong a translation. He was not expressing any contempt. It was their lack of understanding that He was hinting at, the lack that had put them in this mournful state, not their mental abilities. A ‘fool' in the Old Testament is regularly someone who is unaware of spiritual realities.

And then He explains why He calls them foolish. It is because He considers them ‘slow of heart' in that they have refused to believe the many things of which the prophets had spoke concerning the matter. What they had said concerning the women in fact summed them up accurately. They had received good news, but their hearts were slow to take it up. Had they believed the prophets they would have had no such doubts.