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Mat_11:25. Ἀποκρ . means, like òÈðÈä , to take up speech, and that in connection with some given occasion, to which what is said is understood to refer by way of rejoinder. Comp. Mat_22:1, Mat_28:5; Joh_2:18; Joh_5:17, al. However, the occasion in this instance is not stated. According to Luk_10:21 (Strauss, Ebrard, Bleek, Holtzmann), it was the return of the Seventy, of whom, however, there is no mention in Matthew. Ewald, Weissenborn, and older expositors find it in the return of the apostles. See Mar_6:12; Mar_6:30; Luk_9:6; Luk_9:10. This is the most probable view. Luke has transferred the historical connection of the prayer to the account of the Seventy, which is peculiar to that evangelist; while in Mat_12:1, Matthew assumes that the Twelve have already returned. The want of precision in Matthew’s account, which in Mat_10:5 expressly records the sending out of the Twelve, but says nothing of their return, is, of course, a defect in his narrative; but for this reason we should hesitate all the more to regard it as an evidence that we have here only an interpolation (Hilgenfeld) of this “pearl of the sayings of Jesus” (Keim), which is one of the purest and most genuine, one of Johannean splendour (Joh_8:19; Joh_10:15; Joh_14:9; Joh_16:15).
For ἐξομολογ . with dative, meaning to praise, comp. on Rom_14:11; Sir_51:1.
ταῦτα ] what? the imperfect narrative does not say what things, for it introduces this thanksgiving from the collection of our Lord’s sayings, without hinting why it does so. But from the contents of the prayer, as well as from its supposed occasion,—viz. the return of the Twelve with their cheering report,—it may be inferred that Jesus is alluding to matters connected with the Messianic kingdom which He had communicated to the disciples (Mat_13:11), matters in the proclaiming of which they had been labouring, and at the same time been exercising the miraculous powers conferred upon them.
The σοφοί and συνετοί are the wise and intelligent generally (1Co_1:19; 1Co_3:10), but used with special reference to the scribes and Pharisees, who, according to their own opinion and that of the people (Joh_9:40), were pre-eminently so. The novices ( ôÌÀúÈàÄéí ), the disciples, who are unversed in the scholastic wisdom of the Jews. Comp. on this subject, 1Co_1:26 ff. Yet on this occasion we must not suppose the reference to be to the simple and unsophisticated masses (Keim), which is not in keeping with Mat_11:27, nor with the idea of ἀποκάλυψις (comp. Mat_16:17) generally, as found in this connection; the contrast applies to two classes of teachers, the one wise and prudent, independently of divine revelation, the others mere novices in point of learning, but yet recipients of that revelation.
Observe, further, how the subject of thanksgiving does not lie merely in ἀπεκάλυψ . αὐτὰ νηπίοις , but in the two,—the ἀπέκρυψας etc., and the ἀπεκάλυψας , etc., being inseparably combined. Both together are the two sides of the one method of proceeding on the part of His all-ruling Father, of the necessity of which Christ was well aware (Joh_9:39).