성경 주석서

Matthew 5:5. οἱ πραεῖς: in Sept[18] for עֲנָוִים in Psalm 37:11, of which this Beatitude is an echo. The men who suffer wrong without bitterness or desire for revenge, a class who in this world are apt to go to the wall. In this case we should have expected the Teacher to end with the common refrain: theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that being the only thing they are likely to get. Jean Paul Richter humorously said: “The French have the empire of the land, the English the empire of the sea; to the Germans belongs the empire of the air”. But Jesus promises to the meek the empire of the solid earth—κληρονομήσουσι τὴν γῆν. Surely a startling paradox! That the meek should find a foremost place in the kingdom of heaven is very intelligible, but “inherit the earth”—the land of Canaan or any other part of this planet—is it not a delusive promise? Not altogether. It is at least true as a doctrine of moral tendency. Meekness after all is a power even in this world, a “world-conquering principle” (Tholuck). The meek of England, driven from their native land by religious intolerance, have inherited the continent of America. Weiss (Meyer) is quite sure, however, that this thought was far (ganz fern) from Christ’s mind. I venture to think he is mistaken.

[18] Septuagint.

The inverse order of the second and third Beatitudes found in Codex [19], and favoured by some of the Fathers, e.g., Jerome, might be plausibly justified by the affinity between poverty of spirit and meekness, and the natural sequence of the two promises: possession of the kingdom of heaven and inheritance of the earth. But the connection beneath the surface is in favour of the order as it stands in T. R.

[19] Codex Bezae

Matthew 5:6. If the object of the hunger and thirst had not been mentioned this fourth Beatitude would have been parallel in form to the second: Blessed the hungry, for they shall be filled. We should then have another absolute affirmation requiring qualification, and raising the question: What sort of hunger is it which is sure to be satisfied? That might be the original form of the aphorism as given in Luke. The answer to the question it suggests is similar to that given under Beatitude 1. The hunger whose satisfaction is sure is that which contains its own satisfaction. It is the hunger for moral good. The passion for righteousness is righteousness in the deepest sense of the word.—πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες. These verbs, like all verbs of desire, ordinarily take the genitive of the object. Here and in other places in N. T. they take the accusative, the object being of a spiritual nature, which one not merely desires to participate in, but to possess in whole. Winer, § xxx. 10, thus distinguishes the two constructions: διψᾶν φιλοσοφίας = to thirst after philosophy; διψ. φιλοσοφίαν = to thirst for possession of philosophy as a whole. Some have thought that διὰ is to be understood before δικ., and that the meaning is: “Blessed they who suffer natural hunger and thirst on account of righteousness”. Grotius understands by δικ. the way or doctrine of righteousness.

Matthew 5:7. This Beatitude states a self-acting law of the moral world. The exercise of mercy (ἔλεος, active pity) tends to elicit mercy from others—God and men. The chief reference may be to the mercy of God in the final awards of the kingdom, but the application need not be restricted to this. The doctrine of Christ abounds in great ethical principles of universal validity: “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” “to him that hath shall be given,” etc. This Beatitude suitably follows the preceding. Mercy is an element in true righteousness (Micah 6:8). It was lacking in Pharisaic righteousness (Matthew 23:23). It needed much to be inculcated in Christ’s time, when sympathy was killed by the theory that all suffering was penalty of special sin, a theory which fostered a pitiless type of righteousness (Schanz). Mercy may be practised by many means; “not by money alone,” says Euthy. Zig., “but by word, and if you have nothing, by tears” (διὰ δακρύων).

Matthew 5:8. οἱ καθαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ: τ. καρδ. may be an explanatory addition to indicate the region in which purity shows itself. That purity is in the heart, the seat of thought, desire, motive, not in the outward act, goes without saying from Christ’s point of view. Blessed the pure. Here there is a wide range of suggestion. The pure may be the spotless or faultless in general; the continent with special reference to sexual indulgence—those whose very thoughts are clean; or the pure in motive, the single-minded, the men who seek the kingdom as the summum bonum with undivided heart. The last is the most relevant to the general connection and the most deserving to be insisted on. In the words of Augustine, the mundum cor is above all the simplex cor. Moral simplicity is the cardinal demand in Christ’s ethics. The man who has attained to it is in His view perfect (Matthew 19:21). Without it a large numerical list of virtues and good habits goes for nothing. With it character, however faulty in temper or otherwise, is ennobled and redeemed.—τὸν θεὸν ὄψονται: their reward is the beatific vision. Some think the reference is not to the faculty of clear vision but to the rare privilege of seeing the face of the Great King (so Fritzsche and Schanz). “The expression has its origin in the ways of eastern monarchs, who rarely show themselves in public, so that only the most intimate circle behold the royal countenance” (Schanz) = the pure have access to the all but inaccessible. This idea does not seem to harmonise with Christ’s general way of conceiving God. On the other hand, it was His habit to insist on the connection between clear vision and moral simplioity; to teach that it is the single eye that is full of light (Matthew 6:22). It is true that the pure shall have access to God’s presence, but the truth to be insisted on in connection with this Beatitude is that through purity, singleness of mind, they are qualified for seeing, knowing, truly conceiving God and all that relates to the moral universe. It is the pure in heart who are able to see and say that “truly God is good” (Psalm 73:1) and rightly to interpret the whole phenomena of life in relation to Providence. They shall see, says Jesus casting His thought into eschatological form, but He means the pure are the men who see; the double-minded, the two-souled (δίψυχος, Jam 1:8) man is blind. Theophylact illustrates the connection between purity and vision thus: ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸ κάτοπτρον, ἐὰν ᾖ καθαρὸγ τότε δέχεται τὰς ἐμφάσεις, οὕτω καὶ ἡ καθαρὰ ψυχὴ δέχεται ὄψιν θεοῦ.

Matthew 5:9. οἱ εἰρηνοποιοί: not merely those who have peace in their own souls through purity (Augustine), or the peace-loving (Grotius, Wetstein), but the active heroic promoters of peace in a world full of alienation, party passion, and strife. Their efforts largely consist in keeping aloof from sectional strifes and the passions which beget them, and living tranquilly for and in the whole. Such men have few friends. Christ, the ideal peace-maker, was alone in a time given up to sectarian division. But they have their compensation—υἱοὶ θεοῦ κληθήσονται. God owns the disowned and distrusted as His sons. They shall be called because they are. They shall be called at the great consummation; nay, even before that, in after generations, when party strifes and passions have ceased, and men have come to see who were the true friends of the Divine interest in an evil time.

Matthew 5:10-12 being regarded as a transition to a new topic. his seems arbitrary. Delitsch, anxious to establish an analogy with the Decalogue, makes out ten—seven from Matthew 5:3 to Matthew 5:9, Matthew 5:10 one, Matthew 5:11 one, and Matthew 5:12, though lacking the μακάριοι, the tenth; its claim resting on the exulting words, χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε. This savours of Rabbinical pedantry.

Matthew 5:10-12. οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ε. δικ. The original form of the Beatitude was probably: Blessed the persecuted. The added words only state what is a matter of course. No one deserves to be called a persecuted one unless he suffers for righteousness. οἱ δεδιωγ. (perf. part.): the persecuted are not merely men who have passed through a certain experience, but men who bear abiding traces of it in their character. They are marked men, and bear the stamp of trial on their faces. It arrests the notice of the passer-by: commands his respect, and prompts the question, Who and whence? They are veteran soldiers of righteousness with an unmistakable air of dignity, serenity, and buoyancy about them.—αὐτῶν ἐστὶν ἡ β. τ. οὐρ. The common refrain of all the Beatitudes is expressly repeated here to hint that theirs emphatically is the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the proper guerdon of the soldier of righteousness. It is his now, within him in the disciplined spirit and the heroic temper developed by trial.

Matthew 5:11. μακάριοί ἐστε. The Teacher expatiates as if it were a favourite theme, giving a personal turn to His further reflections—“Blessed are ye.” Is it likely that Jesus would speak so early of this topic to disciples? Would He not wait till it came more nearly within the range of their experience? Nay, is the whole discourse about persecution not a reflection back into the teaching of the Master of the later experiences of the apostolic age, that suffering disciples might be inspired by the thought that their Lord had so spoken? It is possible to be too incredulous here. If it was not too soon to speak of Pharisaic righteousness it was not too soon to speak of suffering for true righteousness. The one was sure to give rise to the other. The disciples may already have had experience of Pharisaic disfavour (Mark 2, 3). In any case Jesus saw clearly what was coming. He had had an apocalypse of the dark future in the season of temptation, and He deemed it fitting to lift the veil a little that His disciples might get a glimpse of it.—ὅταν ὀνειδίσωσιν … ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ: illustrative details pointing to persistent relentless persecution by word and deed, culminating in wilful, malicious, lying imputations of the grossest sort—πᾶν πονηρὸν, every conceivable calumny—ψευδόμενοι, lying: not merely in the sense that the statements are false, but in the sense of deliberately inventing the most improbable lies; their only excuse being that violent prejudice leads the calumniators to think nothing too evil to be believed against the objects of their malice.—ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ: for Him who has undertaken to make you fishers of men. Do you repent following Him? No reason why.

Matthew 5:12. χαίρετε καὶ ἀγ. In spite of all, joy, exultation is possible—nay, inevitable. I not only exhort you to it, but I tell you, you cannot help being in this mood, if once you throw yourselves enthusiastically into the warfare of God. Ἀγαλλιάω is a strong word of Hellenistic coinage, from ἄγαν and ἅλλομαι, to leap much, signifying irrepressible demonstrative gladness. This joy is inseparable from the heroic temper. It is the joy of the Alpine climber standing on the top of a snowclad mountain. But the Teacher gives two reasons to help inexperienced disciples to rise to that moral elevation.—ὅτι ὁ μισθὸς … οὐρανοῖς. For evil treatment on earth there is a compensating reward in heaven. This hope, weak now, was strong in primitive Christianity, and greatly helped martyrs and confessors.—οὔτως γὰρ γὰρ ἐ. τοὺς προφήτας. If we take the γὰρ as giving a reason for the previous statement the sense will be: you cannot doubt that the prophets who suffered likewise have received an eternal reward (so Bengel, Fritzsche, Schanz, Meyer, Weiss). But we may take it as giving a co-ordinate reason for joy = ye are in good company. There is inspiration in the “goodly fellowship of the prophets,” quite as much as in thought of their posthumous reward. It is to be noted that the prophets themselves did not get much comfort from such thoughts, and more generally that they did not rise to the joyous mood commended to His disciples by Jesus; but were desponding and querulous. On that side, therefore, there was no inspiration to be got from thinking of them. But they were thoroughly loyal to righteousness at all hazards, and reflection on their noble career was fitted to infect disciples with their spirit.—τοὺς πρὸ ὑμῶν: words skilfully chosen to raise the spirit. Before you not only in time but in vocation and destiny. Your predecessors in function and suffering; take up the prophetic succession and along with it, cheerfully, its tribulations.