Matthew 11:25

Matthew 11:25. At that season. Probably immediately after the denunciation just recorded.

Answered. Not necessarily to an oral question, nor even to the thoughts of the listeners. The ascription of praise seems rather an answer to His Heavenly Father.

I thank thee, ‘I fully confess, thankfully acknowledge the justice of thy doings.'

O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. Christ addresses God as His ‘Father,' not as His ‘Lord.' There are four instances of such public address of our Saviour to His Father; in each case resulting from deep emotion. Here the cause was the impenitence of ‘His own' people. The term, ‘Lord of heaven and earth,' is peculiarly appropriate, since He was about to mention another evidence of God's sovereignty.

That thou didst hide these things, i.e., the character and saving work of Christ, but including the condemnation of the proud, the saving of the humble, and the righteousness and mercy of God as thereby displayed; for the revelation of all these things centres in the revelation of Christ to the believing heart. God hides such things only in just judgment, and the exercise of His justice is rather a leaving of the sinner to the natural result of his sin.

The wise and prudent, according to a worldly estimate; in this case, Pharisees and proud Jews. Those most learned and sagacious in all earthly things often cannot understand the simplest truths of Christianity. They are hid from them, by God indeed, but through their own pride. Merely intellectual culture usually leads to pride, which is the greatest hindrance in learning moral and religious truth.

Reveal them. These things are revealed in general to men in the Gospel, but also, through this, revealed to individuals.

Unto babes. Those despised by the world, because often ignorant of what it values, or considered ‘babes,' because they believe like little children what their Heavenly Father reveals to them.