(4) ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.2+ The
* The phrase 7ST" w7> arose in a literal sense, with refer- ence to the inheritance of the Promised Land of Canaan by the Israelites ; cf. Gn 157, Dt 438, Jos 149. After the Israelites had come into possession of Canaan, the conception was enlarged, and the phrase became figuratively used to designate an antici- pated material, moral and spiritual supremacy of the people of God on the earth, as in Ps 87, esp. vv.9-11, already quoted, and in Ps 259-13 ‘The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way. . . . His soul shall dwell at ease, and his seed shall inherit the land.’ See also Is 6021, Dn 727; and in the NT the idea can be seen in Mt 2534, Mk 127, Ro 413, Gal 318, Rev 69. 10,
+ Tholuck, Bergrede, p. 78 (Eng. tr. p. 83): ‘In this promise humility and meekness are by him pronounced to be the truly world-conquering principle, with reference to their ultimate victory in the history of the future.’ B. Weiss thinks this idea lies very remote from the passage, and describes the meek as ‘those quiet sufferers who, trusting in God, bear, without bitter- ness or a feeling of revenge, the abuse of those who afflict and persecute them. The painful consciousness of their own short- comings makes them humble when they are treated unjustly by others.’ Certainly this teaching is germane to Jesus (Mt 599), but it comes under the eighth Beatitude rather than under the third.
{Mt 56 pandpios of resvavres xl Sirpaveres chy Sixocsocdyyy, ort avrol yopracbjoovras. Lik 621% pecexcepros of resvaivres viv, OTs NopTar- O4cerbe. Itmay be that the original saying was shorter than that which appears in Matthew's Greek form, the ry diz. or even za} din). v7 diz. being possibly am expansion ; but it seems sufficiently clear that in any case the Matthew account pre- serves the true idea, and that the material tone of Luke's Beatitude (compare his corresponding Woe, 625) is a later per- version of Jesus’ utterance.
20 SERMON ON THE MOUNT
terms ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst,’ representing the 8 g
fundamental physical necessities, had been of old used symbolically to denote intense spiritual long- ing, ef. Is 491° 55!-2 65, Am 8", Ps 34°: 1° 42! (and in the NT see Jn 6° 737, Rev 221?) ; xoprdfoua also was used figuratively of spiritual supply, Ps 17” 107%. Of the meaning of this Beatitude there can be no doubt. The righteousness which men are to seek is that righteousness which the entire Sermon is designed to elucidate and to enjoin. Those who earnestly desire it are pronounced blessed, because it is theirs; every one who sincerely wills to have righteousness obtains it (Rev 22"’). Right- eousness was the technical Jewish term to connote that quality and quantity of character and con- duct which God requires of men, and which it is the one aim of life to attain. It was Jesus’ mission to correct and to perfect men’s conception of righteousness, and to inspire them to its actual realization. In this Beatitude He speaks of the blessedness of those who long for righteousness, while in the other Beatitudes and throughout the discourse He shows them what true righteousness is, and how it is to be obtained. Since righteous- ness consists in right character and service, it cannot be externally bestowed,* but must be achieved, by each individual, with the help of God through Christ. And its achievement is a process of growth into the likeness of our Divine Example. It is the glory of the Gospel that to every desirous soul is promised the attainment of God’s ideal for him and membership in the eternal Kingdom of the sons of God.
(5) ‘Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.’'+ It is probably by intention that this Beatitude stands immediately after the one concerning righteousness, for in both OT and NT the two ideas of righteousness and mercy are cor- relative:+ Mic 68 ‘He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ (cf. also Ps 1874, Is 581-11) ; Mt 23” ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Phari- sees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, judgment [7.c. justice §], and mercy, and faith.” There is no righteousness without mercy, whether of God or man. One of the most frequent OT ideas is that God is merciful towards men, and one of its most frequent injunc- tions is that men must be likewise merciful towards one another. Jesus re-established both teachings,
* Neither in this passage nor elsewhere does Jesus use the term ‘righteousness’ in the forensic sense to which St. Paul gave currency. That God does, in His love and mercy, pardon and receive every man who in and through Christ sets him- self seriously towards the Divine ideal, is abundantly taught by Jesus ; but He does not use this term to denote that idea. So nearly all commentators. Achelis, Bergpredigt, p. 22: ‘The words indicate that high degree of longing which rests upon the certainty that the object of the longing is essential to life, that without it life would become death. Righteousness is the object of such desire; what is meant by it is that moral con- dition which is in accordance with God’s will.’ B. Weiss defines the righteousness here referred to as that ‘righteousness which corresponds to the norm of the Divine will, the highest good of every true Israelite, upon the possession of which depends the certainty of God’s good pleasure and the participation in all the promises, The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus offers men this good in an abundance which will satisfy all long- ings, bring full contentment, and fill them with righteousness, For in the Kingdom of God, and only there,—though there with the greatest of certainty,—will the ideal of righteousness be actually realized.’