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Mat_25:12 f. Οὐκ οἶδα ὑμᾶς ] because ye were not amongst the bridesmaids who welcomed me, ye are to me as entire strangers whom I do not know, and who, therefore, can have no part in the marriage! The knowledge of experience arising out of the intercourse of life (Mat_7:23; 1Co_8:3; 1Co_13:12; Gal_4:9) is the point intended to be thus illustrated. Besides, Jesus might also have said (in opposition to Cremer): οὐκ ἔγνων ὑμ . (I have not known you).
οὖν ] because the foolish virgins were shut out, and because something corresponding to this would happen to you unless you watch.
According to Mat_25:13, the teaching of the parable is: that the moral preparedness that continues to maintain itself up till the moment of the advent, the day and hour of which do not admit of being determined, will lead to participation in the Messianic kingdom, whereas those in whom this preparedness has not been maintained till the end will, when surprised by the sudden appearing of the Lord, experience in themselves the irreparable consequences of their foolish neglect, and be shut out from, His kingdom. This latter is a negative expression of condemnation, not, as Olshausen supposes notwithstanding the ἐκλείσθη ἡ θύρα , merely a way of designating such a salvation as is spoken of in 1Co_3:15. More specific interpretations—of the virgins, the lamps, the oil, the κραυγή , etc.—are to be found not only in Origen, Hilary, Cyrill, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Augustine, Jerome (see Cremer, p. 156 ff.), but also in Olshausen, von Meyer, Cremer, Lange, Auberlen. In those interpretations subjective opinion has, in most diverse and arbitrary fashion, exceeded the limits indicated by Jesus in Mat_25:13. Calvin well remarks: “Multum se torquent quidam in lucernis, in vasis, in oleo. Atqui simplex et genuina summa est, non sufficere alacre exigui temporis studium, nisi infatigabilis constantia simul accedat.” Neither is the falling asleep of the virgins intended to be specially significant; for, as it happened in the case of the exemplary wise ones as well, it cannot represent any moral shortcoming.