Verse explainer
Jesus himself said no one knows the day or hour — including him. That hasn't stopped generations of date-setters from trying anyway.
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
BSBNo one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
The plain meaning
Jesus has just described signs leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem and, in broader scope, the end of the age (vv. 4–35). He closes the signs section with a sharp qualifier: all those signs tell you it's near (v. 33), but the precise day and hour belong to the Father alone. The BSB includes 'nor the Son' — a phrase present in the earliest manuscripts and in Mark 13:32 — which the KJV omits but most modern textual scholarship retains. This is not a failure of Jesus's knowledge in some abstract sense; theologians have long read it in terms of his incarnate, earthly mission — he came to redeem, not to disclose the calendar. The practical point is pastoral and urgent: because no one knows the hour, the only rational response is constant readiness (v. 44), not prophetic calculation. Every generation that has set a date has been wrong. The verse is not a puzzle to solve; it's a warning against solving it.
The common misreading
What the commentators say
Henry takes the ignorance declared here as a deliberate withholding fitted to keep believers in a posture of perpetual watchfulness. Knowing the hour would breed either panic or presumptuous delay; not knowing it demands steady, daily readiness. He sees the Father's sole knowledge not as a slight on the Son but as a feature of the economy of redemption.
Barnes notes that 'nor the Son' appears in Mark 13:32 and is the plain sense here as well, referring to Jesus in his human, mediatorial role — not asserting an eternal deficiency in the second person of the Trinity. He stresses that the verse's purpose is to rebuke all attempts to fix dates and to press the duty of watchfulness on every reader in every age.
Calvin argues that Christ, in taking on flesh, voluntarily refrained from exercising certain knowledge not necessary for his saving office. The Father's exclusive knowledge of the day is therefore no embarrassment; it is part of the condescension of the incarnation. Calvin's main application is polemical: it cuts off all prophetic speculation at the root, since if the Son did not disclose it, no prophet or expositor can claim to have extracted it from Scripture.
The word behind it
'Day' — the specific appointed time. Paired here with 'hour' (hōra) to form a merism meaning the precise moment. Strong's G2250. The double denial ('no man … not even the angels … nor the Son') is a rhetorical climax that stacks every conceivable category of knower and excludes them all, leaving the Father as the sole holder of the date. The word choice underscores that what is unknown is not the general season but the exact appointed moment.
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