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Mat_25:1 f. An additional exhortation to watchfulness in consequence of the day and hour of the advent being unknown, and embodied in the parable of the ten virgins, extending to Mat_25:13, which parable is peculiar to Matthew (having been taken from the collection of our Lord’s sayings); for it is not the echoes of the present narrative, but something essentially different, that we meet with in Mar_13:35-37 and Luk_12:35-38.
τότε ] then, i.e. on the day on which the master will return, and inflict condign punishment upon his worthless slave. Not: after inflicting this punishment (Fritzsche), for the parable is intended to portray the coming of the Messiah; but neither, again, is it to be taken as pointing back to Mat_25:37 and Mat_25:14 of the previous chapter (Cremer), which would be an arbitrary interruption of the regular sequence of the discourse as indicated by τότε .
ὁμοιωθήσεται ] will be made like, actually so; see on Mat_7:26.
ἡ βασιλ . τῶν οὐραν .] the Messianic kingdom, in respect, that is, of the principle of admission and exclusion that will be followed when that kingdom comes to be set up.
ἐξῆλθον εἰς ἀπάντ . τοῦ νυμφ .] Here the marriage is not represented as taking place in the house of the bridegroom, in accordance with the usual practice (Winer, Realw. I. p. 499; Keil, Arch. § 109), but in that of the bride (Jdg_14:10), from which the ten bridesmaids set out in the evening for the purpose of meeting the expected bridegroom. The reason why the parable transfers the scene of the marriage to the home of the bride, is to be found in the nature of the thing to be illustrated, inasmuch as, at the time of His advent, Christ is to be understood as coming to the earth and as setting up His kingdom here below, and not in heaven. Comp. also the following parable, Mat_25:14 ff.
ἐξῆλθον ] they went out, namely, from the bride’s house, which is self-evident from the context ( εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ νυμφίου ). Bornemann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 112 f.,—who, like the majority of expositors, supposes that what is here in view is the ordinary practice of conducting the bride from her own house to that of the bridegroom (but see on Mat_25:10),—and Ewald understand ἐξῆλθον of the setting out of the maids from their own homes to go to the house of the bride, in order to start from the latter for the purpose of meeting the bridegroom as he comes to fetch home his bride. But the meaning of the terms forbids us to assume different starting-points for ἐξῆλθον and εἰς ἀπάντησιν (Act_28:15); this is further precluded by the supposition, in itself improbable, that the foolish virgins could not have obtained a fresh supply of oil at the house of the bride.
Whether ten was the usual number for bridesmaids cannot be determined; but generally “numero denario (as the base of their numeral system) gavisa plurimum est gens Judaica et in sacris et in civilibus,” Lightfoot. Comp. Luk_19:13.
φρόνιμοι ] Comp. Mat_24:45, Mat_7:24; Mat_7:26. This second virtue belonging to a right ἑτοιμασία (see on Mat_24:45), viz. practical wisdom, is here intended to be made specially prominent. The idea of a contrast between chastity and its opposite (Cremer) is quite foreign to the context. Comp. κοράσιον φρόνιμου , Tob_6:12.