23. The confession of the false prophets
turns out to be nothing but air; and their words are blown away by the curt
response of the one they have called ‘Lord’.
καὶ τότε ὁμολογήσω αὐτοῖς ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς. This
redactional line serves to introduce a phrase taken from Ps 6:9. Lk 13:27,
which must be closer to Q (see Jeremias, Lukasevangelium,
p. 233; Gundry, Commentary, p. 132),
reads, ‘And he will say, “I tell you, I do not know (οἶδα) where you come from” ’. Matthew
prefers a word stronger than ἐρῶ
(so Luke), and he chooses ὁμολογέω because of its solemnity, public character, and legal sense (which
connotes irreversibility); its use in the judgement scene of Mt 10:32 may also
have been a factor (cf. Rev 3:5). The use of the third person αὐτοῖς (‘I will confess to them’) serves to differentiate the false prophets from Matthew’s
readers. Matthew is, after all, not concerned with correcting the false
prophets but with giving the true sheep a warning. As for the use of the second
person just four words later (‘I never knew you’),
this creates a contrast with the threefold σῷ of the false prophets in 7:22. Note also
that Matthew has changed the tense: ‘I do not know’ (perfect with present
sense) has become ‘I never knew you’. The change was probably made so that
7:23a would cover the protracted period of ministry presupposed by 7:22.
‘I never knew you’ (cf. 25:12, also in a judgement scene) is not to be
taken literally. How could the judge of the earth do right if he knew nothing
of those who stood before him? And how could God lack knowledge of any
individual? ‘I never knew you’ is a formula of renunciation and means, ‘I never
recognized you as one of my own’ (cf. Amos 3:2; Jn 10:14; 1 Cor 8:3; 2 Tim
2:12, 19). (W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison
Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3 vols. [International Critical
Commentary; London: T&T Clark International, 2004], 1:717, emphasis added)