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Mat_11:27. Here the prayer ends, and He turns to address the multitude (Mat_11:28),—but, according to Luk_10:22, it is His disciples,—still full of the great thought of the prayer, under a profound feeling of His peculiar fellowship with God.
πάντα μοι παρεδ .] It is quite as unwarrantable to limit πάντα in any way whatever, as it is to take παρεδόθη as referring to the revelation of the doctrine (Grotius, Kuinoel, and others), or to the representation of the highest spiritual truths (Keim), which Christ is supposed to have been appointed to communicate to mankind. It is not even to be restricted to all human souls (Gess). What Jesus indicates and has in view, is the full power with which, in sending Him forth, the Father is understood to have invested the Son, a power to dispose of everything so as to promote the object for which He came; Bengel: “nihil sibi reservavit pater.” Jesus speaks thus in the consciousness of the universal authority (Mat_28:18; Heb_2:8) conferred upon Him, from which nothing is excluded (Joh_13:3; Joh_16:15); for He means to say, that between Him and the Father there exists such a relation that no one knows the Son, and so on.[443] On both thoughts Christ founds the invitation in Mat_11:28. On the relation of the words πάντα μοι παρεδ . to Mat_28:18, see note on that passage.
ἘΠΙΓΙΝΏΣΚΕΙ ] means more than the simple verb, viz. an adequate and full knowledge, which de Wette wrongly denies (see οὐδὲ τὸν πατέρα τις ἐπιγινώσκει ). Comp. on 1Co_13:12. Nothing is to be inferred from this passage as to the supernatural origin of Jesus (in answer to Beyschlag, Christol. p. 60). The ἐπιγινώσκειν τὸν υἱόν applies to His whole nature and thinking and acting, not merely to His moral constitution, a limitation (in answer to Weiss) which, if necessary, would have been shown to be so in the context by means of the second correlative clause of the verse.
ᾧ ἐὰν βουλ . ὁ υἱὸς ἀποκαλ .] bears the impress of superhuman consciousness. According to the context, we have simply to regard τὸν πατέρα as the object of ἀποκαλ . For ἈΠΟΚΑΛ . with a personal object, comp. Gal_1:16.
[443] In this first clause, to supply the thought from the first—viz., “and to whom the Father is willing to reveal it” (de Wette, following the older expositors)—is arbitrary, for Jesus has just said: πάντα μοι παρεδόθη , etc. To whomsoever the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father, to him He thereby reveals the knowledge of the Son likewise.—Hilgenfeld adopts the Marcionite reading: οὐδεὶς ἔγνω τὸν πατέρα εἰ μὴ ὁ υἱὸς , καὶ τὸν υἱὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ πατὴρ καὶ ᾧ ἂν ὁ υἱὸς ἀποκαλύψῃ . This reading, being that of the Clementines, Justin, Marcion, has earlier testimony in its favour than that of the Received text, which first appears in Irenaeus in a duly authenticated form; Irenaeus, i. 20. 3, ascribes it to the Marcosians, though he elsewhere adopts it himself. However, an examination of the authorities leads to the conclusion (see Tischendorf) that it must be excluded from the text. Comp. also note on Luk_10:21.