Righteousness Reaches Beneath the Surface

“When he was set” means when he had sat down, the posture of a teacher with authority, as a rabbi sat to expound. Matthew does not name the mountain; the hillside above Capernaum where the Church of the Beatitudes stands is a tradition from the Byzantine period, not a fact of the text.

“He opened his mouth” is a Hebrew way of marking solemn, weighty speech, as when Job “opened his mouth, and cursed his day” (Job 3:1). The verb “taught” is continuous in the Greek: he went on teaching, and three chapters follow before the crowd reacts (7:28).

“Blessed” is a declaration, not a wish, like the Hebrew ashrei that opens Psalm 1. The word for “poor” is the beggar’s word, one with nothing at all, rather than the labourer who scrapes by. “Poor in spirit” also turns up as a phrase in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the War Scroll.

The verb for “mourn” is the one used of grief for the dead. Isaiah 61 promises one anointed “to comfort all that mourn”, in the same passage that brings good tidings to the poor, and the first beatitudes seem to follow that prophecy’s order.

The word “meek” returns twice in Matthew, both times about Jesus: “I am meek and lowly in heart” (11:29), and the king who comes “meek, and sitting upon an ass” (21:5). The Greek for “earth” can equally mean “land”, the promised land of the Psalm this line echoes.

“Righteousness” is one of Matthew’s own words, used seven times in the Gospel and five of them in this sermon. “Filled” is chortazo, first used of fattening animals on fodder. It returns when five thousand eat in the wilderness: “they did all eat, and were filled” (14:20).

The only beatitude where the reward is the same word as the condition: the merciful obtain mercy. Mercy becomes a running theme; twice Jesus throws Hosea 6:6 at his critics, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” (9:13; 12:7).

Psalm 24 asks who may climb the LORD’s hill, and answers: “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart.” The promise here goes further than the Psalm, which offered a place in the holy place. Moses was told no man could see God’s face and live (Exodus 33:20).

“Peacemakers” is a word found nowhere else in the New Testament. “Children of God” is literally “sons of God”, the very title the tempter tried to exploit twice in the wilderness (4:3, 6). Here it is a name given, not a claim to be proved.

The Greek is a perfect participle, “those who have been persecuted”, which reads as if the experience were already familiar. The promise repeats verse 3 exactly, closing eight blessings. Persecution is the one condition in the list that is done to a person rather than found in them.

The address switches from “they” to “ye”: the teacher turns from describing people to naming his listeners. “Revile” means to reproach someone to their face, the verb used of the thieves taunting Jesus on the cross (27:44). “Falsely” matters; it is lies that are in view, not deserved blame.

“Be exceeding glad” translates a verb for leaping or exulting. “Reward” is a wage, and the English word appears seven times in the next chapter. Matthew later records Jesus lamenting Jerusalem as the city “that killest the prophets” (23:37), the far end of the line begun here.

Salt from the Dead Sea shore was mixed with gypsum and other minerals, and the true salt could leach out and leave a tasteless crust. “Lost his savour” is literally “become foolish”, from the root of the word “fool” in verse 22. In 1611 “his” still served where we now say “its”.

The Greek puts the pronoun first for emphasis: you, and you in particular, are the light. The same people who were just called poor and persecuted are now called luminous. Isaiah gave the servant of the LORD the task of being “a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6).

The “candle” is a small clay oil lamp, and the “bushel” is a grain measure holding under nine litres, nearer a peck. A single lamp on a stand could light a one room house, which is why it gives light “unto all that are in the house”.

This is the first time in Matthew that God is called “your Father”, a way of speaking that runs through the whole sermon. “Good works” uses kalos, good in the sense of fine or attractive, work that can be seen and admired. Verse 16 sends the admiration elsewhere.

“Think not” heads off an objection before anyone voices it. “Destroy” is kataluo, to loosen down or dismantle, the verb Jesus uses later of the temple where not one stone shall be left (24:2), and that the false witnesses throw at him (26:61).

The first “verily” in Matthew, the Hebrew amen, which others said at the end of a prayer and Jesus says at the start of his own words. The jot is the Hebrew yod, the smallest letter. The tittle is a tiny stroke, literally “little horn”, that tells one letter from a lookalike.

Teachers of the law ranked commands as light and heavy; the bird’s nest law of Deuteronomy 22:6–7 was a common example of the lightest. Jesus later speaks of “the weightier matters of the law” (23:23). Strikingly, the lax teacher here is called least in the kingdom, not shut out of it.

Scribes were the trained experts in the law; Pharisees were a lay movement known for exactness in tithes, purity and Sabbath. To the crowd these were the most scrupulous people alive. “Exceed” is a verb of overflowing, and its root returns in verse 47, “what do ye more than others?”

“By them of old time” can also be read “to them of old time”, the generation that stood at Sinai; the King James margin offers both. “The judgment” here refers to a court, and later Jewish sources describe local courts of twenty three judges in the towns.

“Raca” is Aramaic, roughly “empty head”, left untranslated. “The council” is the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. “Hell fire” is literally “the Gehenna of fire”, the valley of Hinnom south of the city, where children had once been burned to Molech (Jeremiah 7:31).

The grievance belongs to the brother, not to the worshipper: it is the other man who “hath ought” against thee. “Ought” in 1611 meant anything at all. Gifts were brought to only one altar, the one in the Jerusalem temple, and the scene is set at the moment of handing it over.

For a Galilean the temple was a walk of several days, so leaving the gift at the altar implies a long trip home and back; the saying is deliberately extreme. The verb for “be reconciled” appears nowhere else in the New Testament and describes a change on both sides.

The “adversary” is an opponent at law, and the two are walking to court together. The “officer” was the court’s attendant who carried out sentences. Prison for debt was a Greek and Roman practice rather than a penalty of Moses’ law, which fits a scene drawn from the courts people actually faced.

The “farthing” is the quadrans, the smallest Roman coin, a quarter of an as. Mark reckons the widow’s two mites as one of these (Mark 12:42). The debtor pays down to the very last and smallest coin before the door opens.

The sayings follow the order of the commandments: murder in verse 21, then adultery, the sixth and seventh of Exodus 20:13–14. This formula is shorter than verse 21’s, dropping the threatened court, as though the hearers already know the penalty.

The Greek verb for “lust after” is the one the Greek Old Testament uses in the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” (Exodus 20:17). Jesus reads the seventh commandment with the tenth. The phrasing is purposive: looking in order to desire.

“Offend” is skandalizo, from the bait stick that springs a trap, so “cause to stumble” or “snare”. The right eye was reckoned the more valuable, as the right hand was. The saying returns in 18:8–9, where foot is added to hand and eye.

The saying is repeated with a single change, eye to hand, a Hebrew habit of doubling a warning to fix it. The eye sees and the hand takes; between them they cover desire from its start to its act. The right hand was the hand of skill and of oath taking.

The shorter formula “It hath been said” points to Deuteronomy 24:1–4. The certificate protected a dismissed wife, proving she was free to remarry. In Jesus’ day the schools of Shammai and Hillel disputed what the “uncleanness” in Deuteronomy allowed; Hillel’s side allowed divorce for almost anything.

“Causeth her to commit adultery” assumes the social facts: a dismissed woman usually had to remarry to live, and the husband who sends her away is held answerable for what follows. That reading of the social pressure is an inference, but it explains why the blame falls on him first.

Not a single verse quoted but a blend of Leviticus 19:12, against swearing falsely by God’s name, and Numbers 30:2, on keeping a vow. “Forswear” means to break an oath or swear to a lie. The law aimed to keep oaths honest; Jesus aims at the need for them.

James repeats this almost word for word (James 5:12). Quakers and Anabaptists refused courtroom oaths because of it, while others note that Paul calls God as witness in his letters (Romans 1:9). Heaven is God’s throne, as Isaiah 66:1 says, so an oath by heaven is an oath by God after all.

Earth as “footstool” completes Isaiah 66:1. “The city of the great King” comes from Psalm 48:2, about Mount Zion. People swore by these things precisely to avoid saying God’s name, and each one leads straight back to him.

The head, the one thing a man might seem to own outright, turns out to be beyond his control: he cannot change the colour of a single hair. Age turns hair white on God’s timetable, not the swearer’s. The list has narrowed from heaven down to one hair.

“Communication” in 1611 meant talk, ordinary speech. The doubled “Yea, yea” is a way of saying a plain yes and meaning it. “Cometh of evil” can also be read “of the evil one”, the same ambiguity found in the prayer’s “deliver us from evil” (6:13).

The rule appears three times in the law (Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21), and in Deuteronomy it is addressed to judges weighing a case. It was a limit set for courts: the punishment must not exceed the injury.

A right-handed man who strikes the right cheek does it with the back of his hand, which in that world was an insult more than an injury. The Mishnah fixes a heavier fine for a backhanded slap than a plain blow. “Resist” can carry a legal sense, to oppose in court.

The coat is the tunic worn next to the skin; the cloke is the outer garment. Exodus 22:26–27 required a creditor to hand back a poor man’s cloak by sunset, because he slept in it. Jesus tells the one being sued to give up the very garment the law protected.

“Compel” is a Persian loanword for the royal couriers who could commandeer men and animals. Roman soldiers could press a civilian to carry baggage for a mile. The same verb is used when soldiers compel Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross (27:32).

The law already told Israel not to harden the heart against a poor brother, even when the seventh year of release was near and a loan might not come back (Deuteronomy 15:7–10). Interest on such loans was forbidden between Israelites (Exodus 22:25).

In Leviticus 19:18 the neighbour is set beside “the children of thy people”, yet sixteen verses later the same chapter extends that love to the stranger (19:34). The Dead Sea community’s rule told members to hate all the sons of darkness, which shows the added line was not imaginary.

The King James reads more here than the oldest manuscripts, which have only “love your enemies” and “pray for them which persecute you”. The middle phrases match Luke 6:27–28 and were likely drawn across by copyists. “Despitefully use” means to insult or mistreat.

“That ye may be the children” uses the Semitic sense of “son of” as one who shares a father’s character; sons are known by resemblance. The sun is called “his sun”, God’s own property, sent at his expense onto both fields alike.

Publicans collected tolls and taxes under contract for Rome or for Herod Antipas, and were widely counted as traitors and cheats. Only this Gospel calls its own namesake “Matthew the publican” (10:3), so the comparison comes from the book of a former tax man.

“Salute” means to greet, and a greeting of peace was a real act of recognition, withheld from those one wished to snub. Many manuscripts read “Gentiles” here where the King James has “publicans”, so the verse may name a second despised group rather than repeat the first.

The form echoes Leviticus 19:2, “Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.” Deuteronomy 18:13, “Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God”, uses the same Greek word in its Septuagint form. Luke’s parallel line reads “merciful” (Luke 6:36).