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Mat 5:3. Μακάριοι, blessed) This initial word, so often repeated, indicates the object of Christ’s teaching.[170] By means, however, of striking paradoxes, blessedness is proposed not only by itself, but inasmuch as, in Christ now present, it is within the reach of all who are capable of receiving Him. There were some such amongst our Lord’s auditors, though undistinguished by the eye of man (see ch. Mat 9:36-37, Mat 11:28; Isa 29:19), although compared with the rest they were not many in number: for the epithet blessed frequently implies both the excellence and rarity of a thing (as in Sir 31:8), from which the expressions, theirs, they, etc., exclude those otherwise disposed: cf. Luk 6:24-26, where the woes are denounced. Seven however of the μακαρισμοὶ, or predications of blessedness, are absolute, declaring the condition of the godly, as far as regards themselves; two are relative, having respect to the conduct of men towards them. In both cases the kingdom of heaven is placed first, as embracing the whole of the beatitudes. All are enumerated in a most beautiful order. With these may be compared the matter and order of the eight woes, which are denounced against the Scribes and Pharisees, in ch. Mat 23:13-16; Mat 23:23; Mat 23:25; Mat 23:27; Mat 23:29. In both cases mention is made of the kingdom of heaven, here Mat 5:3, there Mat 5:13; of mercy, here Mat 5:7, there Mat 5:23; of purity, here Mat 5:8, there Mat 5:25; and of persecution, here Mat 5:10-11, and there Mat 5:29-30 : and undoubtedly the other clauses may also be respectively compared with each other. In the subject, the saints are described as they are now in this life; in the predicate, as they will be hereafter on that day: see Luk 6:25; Luk 6:23. Our Lord, however, frames His words in such a manner, as at the same time to intimate the blessedness of individual saints already commencing in the present life, and to signify prophetically the blessedness of the holy people, which will hereafter be theirs also upon earth: see Mat 5:5.-οἱ πτωχοὶ, the poor) A vocative, either expressly or such in meaning (cf. Mat 5:11, and Luk 6:20). Nor does the pronoun αὐτῶν, their, oppose this view. Cf. Gnomon on Mat 23:37. Poverty is the first foundation. He is poor, who has it not in his power to say, this is mine;[171] and who, when he has anything for the present, does not devise what he will have for the future, but depends on the liberality of another. The riches which are disclaimed by such poverty, are either spiritual or natural, and are either present or absent. Such cardinal and fundamental virtues are despised by the world: whereas those which the world admires as such, are either no virtues, or false ones, or merely the offshoots and appendages of Christian virtues.-ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΙ, in spirit) i.e. in their inmost self. This word is to be understood also in the following passages as far as Mat 5:8, where the words τῇ καρδίᾳ, in heart, occur.-ὅτι, because) Each kind of blessedness which is predicated corresponds with the previous description of [the character or condition which is] its subject,[172] and is taken, either (1.) from the contrary (for the works of God, 2Co 4:6; 2Co 7:6; 2Co 12:9, are effected in the midst of their contraries);[173] or (2.) regulated by a law of benignant retribution or exact conformity.[174]-ἔστιν, is) sc. already. The present in this verse, and the future in those which follow, mutually imply each other.-ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, the kingdom of heaven, literally, the kingdom of the heavens),[175] which, promised in the Old Testament, is actually conferred by the Messiah.
[170] The first word of this discourse announces its whole scope: a great blessedness is here placed before us by the Lord.-See Heb 2:3.-B. G. V.
[171] i.e., Has nothing which he can call his own.-(I. B.)
[172] Sc. of the present state of the subject. Ex. gr. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”-ED.
[173] In the original, “in mediis contrariis,” the full force of which it is difficult to give by a single phrase. Bengel’s meaning is best obtained by a reference to the texts which he gives.-(I. B.)
[174] In the original, “a talione benigna proximave convenientiâ,” where talio (talion) is used in a sense cognate with its original derivation from talis, such, but unknown (as far as I am aware) to classical usage. It is one of those peculiar adaptations of words frequently occurring in Bengel, and sanctioned (in its principle) by no less an authority than Horace.-See his Ars Poetica, Mat 5:47-48. For an example of Bengel’s meaning, cf Mat 5:7-8 of this chapter.-(I. B.)
[175] This expression, the kingdom of the heavens, marks the commencement of the discussion (tractatio) in this verse, as it also marks the close of the discussion in Mat 5:10.-Vers. Germ.