Bible Commentaries
Matthew 25

Verses 1-46

XXV 1-13 The Ten Virgins (Mt only; but cf.Luke 12:35-39)—The ’coming’ of the Master described in 24:45-51 is now presented as the coming of the Bridegroom. Here again the ’coming’ lacks the pomp of 24:29-31 and we think instinctively of the ’coming’ that tests the individual—death.

1-4. The kingdom of heaven considered in the stage just described (i.e. of the Master’s coming to examine the conduct of his servants; 24:46, 50; this seems indicated by the t?te ?µ???T?seta?; DV ’Then shall . . . be like’) resembles the situation about to be outlined; cf. 13:24, § 699b. The general background is that of a marriage but wants detail and has elements of improbability (Buzy, 326 f.) that perhaps suggest allegory. It is not entirely clear that the ’virgins’ are bridesmaids since no bride is mentioned throughout (omit ’and the bride’ from 1; WV) and, unless we intrude our knowledge of Palestinian marriage-custom, there is no hint that the virgins go to the bride’s house first; it is to the groom’s they go. The parable is concerned only with the relationship of virgins and groom. The tiny clay lamps hold little oil. The prudent young ladies, foreseeing possible delay, carry small refuelling vessels also. Such lamps are eminently unsuitable for the open-air procession. They are introduced into the parable deliberately, possibly because the more practical torch would not bring in the necessary idea of replenishingvessels, possibly as symbols of vigilance, Luke 12:35. The bridegroom (called ’Lord’—????e—in 11; cf. 7:22; 24:50) is Christ himself (cf. 9:15; 22:2; Ephesians 5:25 ff.; Apoc 19:7-9; 21:2. For rabbinic ideas of the Messias wedded to his people cf. Edersheim 1, 722 f.; Brierre- Narbonne , Les Prophéties Messianiques de l’A. T. dans la Littérature Juive, Paris 1933, 22 f.).

5-8. Wearied with waiting all grew drowsy and fell asleep. This detail serves to underline the delay of the groom. It is not reproved: both wise and foolish have allowed themselves to be overtaken by sleep. The guilt does not lie in this but in the carelessness that had made no provision for all eventualities. The wise, though asleep, are prepared. Nor need the delay of the groom hold an allegorical significance (cf. 24:48, note); it perhaps merely emphasizes the prudence that had provided for it. 9. The rather selfish complacency of the prudent may not be admirable but (as elsewhere; cf.Luke 16:8) it is only their one quality (of preparedness) that is set as a model. It emerges that this quality is a personal one and cannot be supplied by others (note the emphatic pronouns of 3, 7, 9: ’their own lamps’, ’for yourselves’, ?a?t?+??, ?a?ta?+??). 10-13. It is too late now: the groom’s arrival (like the Master’s in 24:50) has caught them unprepared. The wise go in with the groom to the marriage-feast;cf. 22:2, note. The door fast-shut, the invocation ’Lord’, the strange and solemn repudiation by the bridegroom, are all unlifelike and betray the application of the parable. This is explicitly made in 13: prudent provision for the Lord’s coming, whenever it be.

14-30 The Talents (cf.Luke 9:11-27)—Our Lord had said, 24:45, that the true servant must be faithful and prudent. The parable of the Virgins illustrates the prudence that makes the Christian live with a view to the coming of the Bridegroom. The parable of the Talents illustrates the faithfulness required of each Christian in the administration of goods committed to him by the Master.

14-15. The ’watchfulness’ mentioned in 13 is necessary because (For it is as when’: ?spe? ???) the situation under discussion is comparable to the one about to be described. In proportion to the financial ability of each of his servants (with the intention, therefore, of their making profit for him) the Master commits to them various sums. A huge sum to the first, a small fortune to the second, a not inconsiderable amount to the third. For the ’talent’ cf. 18:24, § 707b.16-17. The first and the second lose no time (the ’immediately’ of 15 is to be taken with 16: Straightway he that had received. . .; WV) in doubling each his master’s money by hard work. Presumably this result was achieved only ’after a long time’, 19, when the master returned; cf. 25:5; 24:48, note.

18. The third hid his talent, doubtless in the form of current coins, in a hole in the ground for safety.

19. The long absence of the master throws into relief the sustained diligence of the first and second servants and the persistent laziness of the third.

20-23. The faithful conduct of some few business-matters (the amounts, though huge, are as nothing to the master and in comparison with the reward) is rewarded by a post of greater importance. The application of the parable shines through the sentence: Enter thou into the joy [i.e. the joyful banquet; Joüon, 157; cf. 25:10, note] of thy Lord! The faithful servant shares with Jesus (cf. 25:34) the joy of the Father’s kingdom and apparently (cf. 25:21, 23) is associated with the King’s administration of the earthly kingdom so long as it lasts; cf. 19:28, note.

24-25. The lazy servant throws the responsibility upon the master. Experience tells him, he suggests, that the master is an exacting man. It seems that he stops short of an accusation of dishonesty. He develops the term ’exacting’ in two farming-images: ’reaping where thou hast not sown’, ’garnering where thou hast not winnowed’ (WV). They are operations in which the master has had no personal share, from which nevertheless he expects profit. It is the classical objection to the ’capitalist’. The servant alleges that his timidity proceeded from a knowledge of this. He considers that the return of the talent absolves him from blame.

26-27. The master immediately unmasks the true motive of the servant’s conduct: sloth. Even granted this caricature of himself, he argues, the servant should have had the wit and will if not to trade, as the others have done, at least to bank the money. On Jewish bankers cf. Edersheim 2, 463 f. The master would thus have received the interest.

28-29. To the first servant, who has shown himself able to bear great responsibility, the master transfers the idle ’talent’. Yet the servant has already ’entered into the joy of his Lord’. One, therefore, again receives the impression (car. 21, 23) that ’the faithful servant of Christ is awarded a stewardship of a higher order in heaven (cf.Luke 16:9-12) and associated more closely than ever with the furthering of the Kingdom’s interests’ (Feuillet). In human affairs responsibility is increasingly added to the able and willing. This is true, mutatis mutandis, of the Kingdom, 29.

30. The punishment is directly contrasted with the reward. The lazy servant is thrust out from the joy and light of the king’s banquet-hall; cf. 8:12, § 689e. The parable primarily teaches that God’s gifts, of nature and especially of grace, are held in stewardship and must not be allowed to lie idle. They are to be used to further his kingdom; cf. 5:13-16. It emerges, secondarily, that the standard of God’s judgement is relative to the opportunities offered: ’the greater the gifts, the greater the account demanded’ (Gregory the Great, PL 76, 1106).

XXV 31-46 The Last Judgement (Mt only)—The preceding parables have dealt with God’s particular assessment of the conduct of individuals—an assessment which is repeated throughout the course of the earthly Kingdom’s history as each individual comes to his account. Our Lord now passes to a description of the universal and final Assize. ’Between 24:1-44 and 25:31-46 there is this in common, viz. that in each case a collective judgement closes an era in the history of salvation, and there is a solemn intervention of the Son of Man. . . . But the analogy stops there. . . . The first tableau, 24:1-44, presents a purely collective judgement, taking place in time, without any reference to sanctions in the eternal world; this is followed by a new stage in the history of man’s religious evolution—a new cosmos. The second tableau describes a judgement not only collective but individual also; when it is finished, human history is at an end; man goes to eternal life or to eternal loss’, Feuillet. Contemporary Jewish thought, too, appears to distinguish a judgement inaugurating the Messianic era (’days of the Messias’; cf. 19:28, § 709e) and another judgement, strictly eschatological, which introduces the eternal world, Bonsirven, 1, 486-93. Even the second of these has, for the Rabbis, a tinge of nationalism: Israel would receive preferential treatment from God the Judge, Bonsirven 1, 500-3. Our Lord, speaking here of this second and final judgement, shows no trace of nationalism. The judgement by which the kingdom of the Son is purified before becoming the kingdom of the Father is decided exclusively on religious grounds.

31. Of this final judgement the Messias had not been imagined as the independent Judge. Our Lord, however, unhesitatingly assumes this office. He goes further (cf. 40, 45) and decides the issue on man’s attitude to himself. This situation ’constitutes a declaration (of divinity) almost as solemn as the one he was to make when he presented himself to the Sanhedrin as Son of God’, Lagrange.

32-33. Man is fitly judged by the Son of Man and the judgement is universal. The ’sheep’, for their mild expression and docility, are a suitable image of the faithful followers of Christ the shepherd, John 10:3, John 10:4, John 10:27. They are distinguished from the ’goats’ (cf.Ez 34:17), mistrustful of eye and intractable of conduct, aptly chosen as their wicked counterpart. The right hand then, as now, was considered as the place of favour.

34. The ’king’, the enthroned Son of Man of 31, invites the good to the kingdom of his royal Father. They are blessed of (i.e. ’by’ or ’belonging to’; cf.John 11:29) that Father who, in his eternal decree had foreknown his own and prepared for their happiness; cf. 5:4, note.

35-36. Why this reward? Because the King himself had been by them fed, harboured, clothed; visited in sickness and in captivity. The Son of Man thus identifies himself with the cause of all men whom, as the Servant of God, Is 53, he purchased with his death.

37-40. Christian disciples at least could not doubt that they had done these things for the love of Christ, Mark 9:40, nevertheless they could not have realized, without our Lord’s assurance, that these were favours personal to him. This was all the more remarkable in that the visible objects of those favours were often their own enemies and perhaps his; cf. our Lord’s own instructions in 5:46. But the astonishment of the just at the judgement is merely a literary presentation of the lesson. In effect, after this revelation of our Lord’s, they will henceforth see Christ in all the needy, friend or foe.

41-46. The sentence of the wicked, expressed more briefly than the invitation of the just, is a terrible one. Instead of ’Come!’, ’Depart!’; in place of the Kingdom, ’everlasting fire’. God had prepared for man the Kingdom, not the fire, Wis 2:23 f.; this last was prepared only for the rebellious Satan (cf.2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6) and his satellites whom, in rabbinic tradition, the archangel Sammael (Satan) had dragged with him to their doom, SB 1, 983 f. The Jewish texts do not agree on the eternity of punishment ( Bonsirven 1, 538-41) but our Lord’s terms clearly suggest a definitive separation of good from bad when the last and solemn judgement is declared.