Short answer: In Matthew 24:36–44 Jesus says the day and hour of his return are known only to the Father, not even to the angels. His coming will resemble the days of Noah, when people ate, drank and married until the flood came and took them away, unaware until judgment arrived. Two people will be at the same ordinary work, and one will be taken while the other is left. Because the hour is unexpected, the passage calls for watchfulness and readiness rather than calculation.
On the mount of olives, Jesus turns from signs to an unknown hour
The setting matters. Jesus has just told his disciples that the temple will be thrown down, and they ask him on the Mount of Olives when it will happen and what will signal his coming and the close of the age. What follows is prophetic teaching, not a schedule. He warns first about deception, false claims, wars and persecution, then speaks of distress and of the Son of Man appearing with power and great glory. Matthew 24:34 gives the hard saying about this generation, and Matthew 24:35 sets the permanence of his words against the passing of heaven and earth. The discourse is instruction for people who must live through the waiting.
Then the turn comes. Matthew 24:36 moves sharply from what can be observed to what cannot be known: no one knows the day and hour, not the angels, not the Son, but the Father only. Everything after that verse hangs on this limit. The days of Noah are not offered as a code to decode but as a comparison: ordinary life, eating and drinking, marrying, carrying on until the flood came. Two men in a field, two women at a mill, one taken and one left. The point is the suddenness and the separation, not a chart of dates.
The shape of the paragraph shows the intent. A thief comes at an unguarded hour, so the homeowner would have watched; therefore be ready, Jesus says, because the Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect. Then the discourse turns toward the servant set over the household to give food in due season, and blessing rests on the one found doing so at his master's return. That ending tells us what this teaching is for. It produces stewardship and faithfulness during an unknown delay, not date-setting or reading headlines as a decoded timetable.
What Jesus says about the day and hour
Jesus begins with a limit: "But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only" (Matthew 24:36). The phrase fixes our attention on timing, and then closes the door on every timetable but the Father's. Notice how wide the exclusion runs. Not the disciples, not the angels, only the Father. This is not a puzzle he expects us to solve with enough study or enough news. He tells us plainly that the date is not ours to hold. Any teacher who hands you a calendar has stepped past a line Jesus drew.
He then compares his arrival to Noah's day. People were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up to the day Noah entered the ship, and they did not know until the flood came and took them all away (24:38–39). The ordinary texture of life is not the problem; the unawareness is. "The coming of the Son of Man" means his own arrival, the moment he appears and acts, sudden the way the flood was sudden. Then two men in a field, two women at a mill: same work, same setting, and one is taken while the other is left (24:40–41). The text gives no mechanics, only the division his arrival makes.
So the commands are "Watch therefore" and "be ready" (24:42, 24:44). These are about posture, not prediction. A homeowner who knew the hour would have stayed awake, Jesus says; you do not know, so live awake. That rules out date-setting and reading headlines as a decoded schedule, since the hour is hidden by the Father's design. What stays central is faithfulness in the ordinary: the servant found giving food at the right time is called blessed (24:46). Watchfulness looks like doing your assigned work well while you wait, not guessing when the master returns.
What Jesus says about the day no one knows
Matthew 24 begins with Jesus telling his disciples that the temple will be thrown down, and their questions follow: when, and what sign will mark his coming and the close of the age. Jesus answers with warnings about deception, wars, and persecution, then speaks of distress and of the Son of Man appearing with power and great glory. Verse 34 gives the hard saying about this generation, and 24:35 sets the permanence of his words against the passing of heaven and earth. Then 24:36 turns sharply: from what can be observed to what cannot be known. The day and hour are hidden, not known even to the angels, but to the Father only.
That hiddenness shapes everything that follows. Jesus compares his coming to the days of Noah, when people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up to the day Noah entered the ship, and they did not know until the flood came and took them all away (24:37–39). The point is not that ordinary life is wicked but that it went on undisturbed, without awareness, until judgment arrived. Then come the paired figures: two men in the field, two women grinding at the mill, one taken and one left (24:40–41). The same work, the same hour, a real separation.
So the passage commands watchfulness rather than calculation. Since the hour is unknown, the master of the house would have stayed awake had he known when the thief was coming (24:42–43). Be ready, Jesus says, because the Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect (24:44). This rules out date-setting and reading current events as a decoded timetable; the Father keeps that hour in his own authority. The next paragraph shows the intended fruit: the faithful and wise servant found giving food in due season when his lord returns (24:45–46). Readiness looks like steady stewardship during an unknown delay.
Where readers disagree about the taking and the day
Jesus says plainly that the day and hour are known to the Father alone, not to the angels, not even to the Son in his humiliation. That sentence sets a boundary around everything that follows. Notice also 24:35, where his words are placed against the passing of heaven and earth. Whatever readers conclude about the schedule, they cannot conclude that the timing is available to them. This is why date-setting and decoding current headlines into a timetable contradict the text rather than merely stretch it. The Father has fixed the hour; the church has not been handed the calendar.
The illustration from Noah is where careful readers part ways. In the flood, the ones taken away were taken in judgment, while Noah was preserved. So some read 24:40–41 as the wicked removed and the righteous left, and others read the taken as those received by the Lord. The text gives no explanation of which is meant. Readers also differ over how much of the discourse concerns Jerusalem's destruction and how much the final return, and whether 24:34 means the generation then living or the generation that sees the signs. These are genuine disagreements among those who take Scripture seriously.
What stays central across those differences is stated in 24:42 and 24:44: watch, and be ready, because the coming is certain and the hour unexpected. Jesus does not resolve the identity of the taken and left; he turns the uncertainty into a command. The faithful servant in 24:45 is found giving food in due season, not calculating dates. Both those who expect a removal before tribulation and those who expect one visible return at the end appeal to this chapter, yet all are called to the same readiness. Pastors do well to keep that command in front of their people.
The day no one knows
Jesus answers his disciples' question about the end by drawing a line no one can cross. He says plainly, "But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Matthew 24:36. The angels do not know. The disciples do not know. The Son, in his teaching here, does not name the hour. Any teacher who maps current headlines onto a timetable claims knowledge Jesus placed with the Father alone. The point is not to puzzle over dates but to live as people whose Lord may arrive unannounced. That is the posture the passage builds toward, and it begins with honest ignorance.
The comparison to Noah is striking because of what people were doing. They were eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage. Ordinary life, not scandalous sin. The flood came while the routine continued, and the text says they did not know until it swept them away. Then come the field and the mill: two men working, two women grinding, one taken and one left. The division runs through the middle of ordinary work, not around it. Jesus is the Son of Man whose arrival settles that separation, and the passage gives no formula for predicting it, only the certainty that it comes.
So Jesus says, "Watch therefore, for you don't know in what hour your Lord comes." Matthew 24:42. He tells of a homeowner who would have stayed awake had he known the thief's hour, and draws the conclusion: be ready, because the Son of Man comes when you do not expect him. Readiness, then, is not anxious calendar-watching. It is trust in the one whose words outlast heaven and earth, and faithful service in the household he has left in our care. Pastors do well to say this clearly: date-setting is not vigilance, it is the opposite. The servant found doing his work when the Lord returns is the one who was ready.
What faithful waiting looks like on an ordinary Tuesday
Jesus says something here that settles a great deal of speculation: no one knows the day and hour, not the angels, not the Son in his human knowing, but the Father only (24:36). That is not a gap in revelation to be filled by clever reading of headlines. It is a boundary set by the one who is coming. So the honest response is to stop calculating and start watching. Watchfulness in this passage is not anxiety about a calendar. It is the posture of people who know their Lord is away and will return, and who live accordingly while he tarries.
Notice what the people of Noah's day were doing: eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage (24:38). Nothing scandalous. Ordinary life, ordinary meals, ordinary weddings. They were not wicked in some spectacular way; they were simply unaware, and the flood took them while the routine continued. That is the danger Jesus names. Watchfulness means refusing to be lulled by the normality of things, not because every news cycle is a sign, but because a day is coming that will interrupt the routine entirely. Two men in a field, two women at a mill, and one is taken and one left (24:40–41). The difference is not visible from the outside.
So the practical question is not what date to circle. It is whether you are doing the good you have been given to do. The next paragraph of this chapter turns straight to the servant set over the household, giving food in due season, and calls him blessed if his master finds him doing so (24:45–46). Readiness looks like faithfulness in assigned responsibilities: the work in front of you, the marriage you are in, the meals you share, the people you serve. We watch because his words are trustworthy and he has placed us in his household, not to earn his favor or to pin down what he has kept hidden.
The ground of all this is grace. Heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not (24:35). We do not watch to secure outcomes he has not promised, nor to decode a timetable he has withheld. We watch because the one who spoke is faithful, and because he has given us work to do until he comes. That is a comfortable place to leave the matter: confident about the certainty he affirms, humble about the details he leaves open, and busy about the good that is already in our hands.
Biblical fidelity check
Matthew 24:36–44 sits inside Jesus' answer about the temple's destruction and his own arrival, so readers must decide how much addresses Jerusalem in that generation and how much the final return. The timing language is deliberately closed: "But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." The flood comparison describes ordinary life continuing unaware, then sudden division in field and mill. Watch and be ready are commands about posture, not a schedule to decode.
The real disagreement concerns what being taken means. Some read it as removal in judgment, matching the flood that swept the unaware away; others read it as reception by the Lord. The text does not explain. Readers also differ over verse 34's generation and over whether this chapter teaches a secret removal of believers or one visible return; both sides cite it. What stays central is that the Father alone fixes the hour, the coming is certain and unexpected, and the church is called to faithful readiness rather than date-setting.
Where Matthew 24:36-44 connects to the rest of Scripture
For further study, compare this passage with Matthew 2:23 Explained: Why Jesus Was Called a Nazarene on Noah and the flood, Matthew 27:9-10: Why Matthew Says Jeremiah Not Zechariah on Jesus' teaching about the unknown hour, Matthew 7:21-23: Not Everyone Who Says Lord, Lord on watchfulness in the Gospels, and Matthew 1:1-17: Why Jesus' Genealogy Matters on the separation of the wicked and the righteous.
Frequently asked questions
Does Matthew 24 teach that believers will be secretly removed from the earth before judgment?
No, this passage does not describe a secret removal of believers before judgment. Jesus compares his coming to the days of Noah, when people carried on ordinary life until the flood took them away, and he says the same pattern will mark his return. Two men in a field and two women at the mill are separated, one taken and one left, which shows a dividing at his coming rather than an earlier escape. His point is watchfulness, since no one knows the day or hour.
In Matthew 24:40–41, what does it mean that one person is taken and another is left?
In this passage, being taken means being swept away in judgment, as in the flood that took them all away (24:39), while being left means remaining. Jesus sets the picture in the days of Noah, when people carried on ordinary life unaware until the flood came, and he says the coming of the Son of Man will be the same. The two men and two women are outwardly alike, yet one is taken and one left, so the point is that readiness cannot be assumed. Jesus draws the application himself: watch and be ready, because the hour is unknown (24:42–44).
If no one knows the day or hour of Jesus' return, why does he still tell us to watch for it?
Jesus tells us to watch precisely because the day and hour are unknown, not in spite of it. In 24:36 he says the Father alone knows the timing, and in 24:42 he draws the conclusion: watch, because you don't know the hour your Lord comes. The point of watching is not to calculate a date but to live ready, as 24:44 says, since the Son of Man comes in an hour you don't expect. Not knowing keeps us watchful rather than presumptuous.
