Mark 13 · a question people ask
What does 13:32 say about who knows "that day or that hour"?
Here are its words: "But of that day or that hour no one knows—not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (13:32). It names who doesn't know (no one, the angels in heaven, the Son) and the one who does (the Father). Straight after it Jesus says, "Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is" (13:33), and "Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming" (13:35). After he rose, when the apostles he had chosen (Acts 1:2) had come together and asked him, "Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6), he said to them, "It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority" (Acts 1:7). The chapter doesn't explain 13:32 beyond its words, and these notes don't either.
The verses
““But of that day or that hour no one knows—not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is.”
“Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming—whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning;”
“until the day in which he was received up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.”
“Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.”