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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.’
Mat_5:5
I. Victory over self.—Think of the example of Moses. Ruler, Legislator, Poet, and best of all, Saint! Who can help admiring him? But his greatest victory was over himself. Exo_2:11-12 tells us what sort of person he was by nature, and Num_13:3 what he became by grace. Forty years in Midian and forty years in the wilderness taught him many lessons, and he learned to control his temper and curb his tongue.
II. Where is meekness found?—At the Feet of the Redeemer, at Calvary’s Cross; there proud and stubborn and wayward souls learn to be meek and lowly; there we learn to forget injuries and forgive our enemies. ‘The meek will He teach His way’ (Psa_25:9).
III. The meek have the best of life, notwithstanding what the world says. ‘They shall inherit the earth.’
The Rev. F. Harper.
Illustrations(1) ‘The word “meek” hardly expresses the quality which is meant in the original. It is too passive a word; it does not sufficiently represent the actual character which is intended. In the French translation it is, “Bienheureux sont les débonnaires;” that is, “Happy are the gracious, graceful Christian characters, who by their courtesy win all hearts around them, and smooth all the rough places of the world.” Perhaps “Blessed are the gentle” would best express it.’
(2) ‘As a boy, Robert Hall was very passionate, but when he felt passion rising, he used to go away into a quiet place and say, “O Lamb of God, calm my mind.” Thus he conquered his temper, and became one of the gentlest of men ever known.’
(3) ‘There is the authority of a very great lawyer—in very large and lengthened practice—for saying that, even in a worldly sense, it is true that those who forgo all quarrels and all lawsuits, and accept wrong, are they who, in the long run, are the most prosperous, and come out the richest at the end.’