Mark 13:32

Hour— Though we have given an explanation of this verse, as well as the whole chapter, in the notes on the parallel passage of St. Matthew; yet an ingenious commentator having offered a different solution from that which we have given, we here subjoin it: The word οιδεν, says he, here seems to have the force of the Hebrew conjugation hiphil, which, in verbs denoting action, makes that action, whatever it is, pass to another; wherefore ειδεω, which properly signifies, I know, used in the sense of the conjugation hiphil, signifies, I make another to know. The word has this meaning without dispute, 1 Corinthians 2:2. I determined to know [ειδεναι] nothing among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; that is, "I determined to make known, to preach nothing, &c." So likewise in the text, "But of that day and that hour none maketh you to know:—No, not the angels, neither the Son, but the Father; neither man nor angel, neither the Son himself, can reveal the day and hour of the destruction of Jerusalem, because the Father has determined that it shall not be revealed." The divine wisdom saw fit to conceal from the apostles the precise period of the destruction of Jerusalem, that they might be laid under a necessity of watchingcontinually;andthisvigilancewasespeciallyproperatthattime,becausethe success of the gospel depended in a great measure upon the activity and exemplary lives of those who first published it. It is an excellent observation of Mr. West, relating to the authors who have recorded this prophesy, which is expressed in terms so very plain and circumstantial,—that Matthew and Mark were incontestably dead before the event, as Luke also might probably be; and as for John, the only evangelist who survived it, it is remarkable that he says nothing of it, lest any should assert that the prophesy was forged after the event happened. See West on the Resurrection, p. 393.