Blessedness may therefore be regarded as one of tlie forms under which our Lord presented the character of His kingdom, and so it becomes an illuminative idea whereby to read the whole Gospel narratives. They all illustrate it. They all serve to make up its content. The word and thought derived from the Old Testament receive richer Eignificance, and may be taken as equi- valent to those other great terms, such as ' eternal life ' and ' the kingdom of heaven,' under which, in the pages of St. John and St. Matthew, the great purposes of God in Christ are set forth.
rticular,
icTes in
Gop,
LlF
Mt B ami Lk U, .and on til. I I't^-d, especially, for practi'v-il i)ur]jose.-4,
Moi. ; ; , i:,-,n.s. Gr. Test.]; Trench, The .iermon on
tl„'M..',.' I , ^i i-.ccnt full comnu-ntarv on Matthew is that of Zahii i ' .i ni i'.-;.- -n Uf Kin-dom of God should also 1.. In. A, Thins, Die AT
Lehre vmi •! > -' : i i i -nr. ; and Bousset,
Jesu Predi'ii I ' • ntinn. See also N.
Smyth, C'/iri.-'""i '-''"' , li-il . .1 !:, I. i-htfnot, .'ScnnoiM mSt. Paul's, 178; T. G. Sclbv, The Imperfect Angel, 25.
G. CuRRiE Martin. BLESSING.—
1. Introductory.
2. Terms.
a. Jewish usage. 4. Usage in the Gospels. Literature. 1. Introductory. — The main underlyir.g idea of the characteristic New Testament w ord for ' bles.'j-
BLESSING
BLESSING
211
ing' (erXovfii') seoms lo be that of {goodwill, which, on the part of man towards God, has its appro- priate expression in praise and thanksgiving, flie close connexion of these two last ideas is clearly seen in the New Testament in tlie interchange of the expressions for ' to bless ' (€i;Ao7fri') and ' to give thanks,' namely to Ood (ewxapi"'"''"', cf. r.g. Mk G'" and II with Jn 6" ; and see, further, below, § 4), and is exiilained l)y tlie Jewish development of the term for 'blessing' (hUrakhdh ; cf. further, § ib). In Jewish religious terminology, under the influ- ence of the high ethical views of God's character and uniqueness, and His relation to Israel and mankind, that liad been developed, ' blessing ' acquires a lofty .spiritual connotation. God 'blesses' man and his world by His ever active, beneficent I'rovidence ; man ' blesses ' God by thankful recognition of this, and by pure acts of praise ; man 'blesses' man by invoking the Divine favour for his fellows' benetit (cf. e.g. Ps 129*) ; and even when material things are the objects of blessin", this finds its proper expres-sion in an act of thanksgiving to the Divine Giver.
The original sense of the Heb. verb herakh (Piel, denomina- tive from herekh, ' knee') is more probably 'to cause to make progress ' (so Cheyne) than any notion of adoration (' to bend the knee '). The primitive conception of blessing and cursing, according to which they were regarded as possessing "of the speak'
2. rer»w.— The terms for ' bles.sing ' used in the Gospels are —
{a) eiXoyuv, ' to bless,' and eiiXoyvTSi, euXoyrnihos, ' blessed. ' All these forms are common in the LXX, where, in the vast majority of instances, they correspond to .some form of the Heb. word TI3 or its derivatives.
ti/y.oyuy is used —
(A) of men : (1) as in Greek writi praise," "celebrate with praises,' vi2
in the Gospels: e.g. Lk 164 -vii 24M [:. . _.
?»l«?£i», "to glorify'; see under limv', below].' (2) "'To invoke blessings upon ' (a sense peculiar to Biblical Greek) : e.g. Lk 628. (3) ' To bless ■ material objects (i.e. to bless God for their be- stowal) : e.g. LkB"':
(B) 0/ God : (4) ' To bestow blessings, favour, upon men ' : e.g. Lk 1*- (tuXoyvifAivoi). [The compound xartukcysivy 'to call down blessings upon' occurs, according to the best attested reading, in Mk 10i»].
(6) Ei^xopio-reii',* 'to give thanks,' viz. to God, esp. for food : e.g. Mt 15^" 26". With this compare also—
{c) i^ofj.o\oyeii>, 'to celebrate,' 'give praise or thanks to' [tlvI] : Mt ll-'^ and ||, and—
id) aivelv, ' to prai.se, extol ' God : Lk 2'3- =» Wi 24'3 (reading doubtful). [Cf. the use of the syn- onymous expression Soi&leiv, Lk 17'', and SiSbvai. 6l>iav T(j ffe(f~,t 'to give glory to God,' Lk I"'*— both of thanksgiving].
(e) imKaplieiv, ' to pronounce blessed ' : once only in Gospels, Lk 1« ; and /iaitdpios, ' blessed,' ' hapjjy ' (esp. in a congratulatory sense) : e.n. in the Be ' tudes (Mt 53-", Lk 6*-=- ; cf. Jn 20=^). Both W( are common in the LXX.
*). Both word?
11, IS remarKaoie mat tne term <i/v«/i,irri,. occurs very raroh (and only in the Apocryphal books)in the LXX. The coinni.,ij LX.X equivalent for 'to give thanks '(Heb. Iii'iduh) \s iin/juXayi,,. uhuf is also of frequent occurrence there. The Bishop of Salisbury (The Holy Communion'^, p. 135 n. 34) suggests that liAsj-frK in the NT was ' often purposely exchanged ... for the more classical and intelligible luxapiirTuv.'
3. Jetvish icsage.—T\\e elements that entered into the Hebrew idea of ' blessing ' J sketched
• The derivatives iij;«^,o-T;« ('giving of thanks') and lirifiir- Tt,- (' thankful ') do not occur in the Gospels, f See, further, on this expression Grimm-Tha\er, Lex. s.v