25:1–13 Jesus compares the “kingdom of heaven” to “ten virgins” who are either wedding guests or bridesmaids (25:1). The parable depicts a wedding celebration that generally follows Jewish marriage customs. Weddings could last all day. After dancing early in the day, the groom typically left his house with a contingent of friends, walking to the home of the bride. After ceremonies there, the wedding procession, accompanied by singing and dancing, returned to the groom’s home for the wedding proper and the ensuing feast. The procession and wedding typically occurred at night. Jesus envisions a torchlit procession. The “lamps” are probably oil-soaked rags, wrapped around a stick. A “well-soaked torch would burn” for perhaps fifteen minutes; one without oil would go out immediately.420 The brightly burning lamps enhance the procession.

The five wise virgins prepare for delay by bringing an ample supply of oil, but the fools do not (vv. 2–4). In that culture, people retired early, so the delay leads to drowsiness, then sleep (v. 5). At midnight, the cry goes up that the groom is arriving, so it is time to join the wedding procession (v. 6). The word for meeting (Gk. apantēsis) fits contexts in which someone meets and escorts a noted person (Acts 28:15). Paul uses it for believers’ meeting Christ at his return (1 Thess. 4:17). That point will not settle debates about the “rapture” or silence hyperventilated debates about the timing of Christ’s return. Jesus explicitly denies that his teaching gives information about the timing of his return. Matthew 24:36–25:13 repeatedly insists that disciples do not and cannot know the time of Jesus’ return. Therefore, they must watch and stay ready (24:44; 25:13).

When the cry rouses the ten bridesmaids, the five who have extra oil are ready to meet the groom, but the others have run out and so are unprepared to join the procession. Because wedding delays were common, their negligence is culpable. The foolish women beg the wise for some of their oil, but they refuse (vv. 7–8). Some commentators consider this self-centered. Witherington replies that the five wise bridesmaids’ refusal to share is not selfishness but “preparation and wisdom to know what it will take to get the task accomplished.”421 That is, the explanation that “there will not be enough for us and for you” (v. 9) is best understood as concern for the procession, an important cultural event.422 It would spoil the procession if all of the friends of the bride ran out of oil.423 So the foolish virgins have no easy task: to find and purchase oil at midnight. As they go, the bridegroom arrives. The procession follows him to the wedding feast, “and the door was shut” (vv. 9–10).

Whether they have procured the necessary oil or not, the other virgins eventually arrive and beg, “Lord, lord, open to us” (v. 11). Like the call, the response echoes 7:21–23: “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” (25:12). Literalism can impair interpretation here. The groom could have opened the door. Since wedding feasts could last a week, the door had to open at times. And the groom knows the foolish virgins; they had been invited to the feast, after all. “I do not know you” confirms the relational breach separating the wedding party from the maids. The virgins compromise their relationship when they act indifferent to their duties as members of the wedding procession. They had one task: to bring a torch and oil. Their failure to do so both shames them and insults the bridal party. Their neglect shows they are not true friends, and the groom bans them.

Jesus spells out the lesson: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (v. 13). Like the bridegroom, he delays his return longer than expected. In weddings, delays were common, and a culture without clocks was not so vexed by them. The problem is not lost time but lack of preparation. Nor is drowsiness the sin. In an age when light was poor, people typically went to sleep well before midnight. All the maidens slept, but only five failed. The groom’s delay revealed what was in the women and separated them.