Matthew 5:10

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) Persecuted for righteousness sake.—Here again there is a profound significance in the order. The work of the peacemakers is not a light and easy work. Often, as of old, when we “labour for peace,” men “make them ready for battle” (Psalm 120:7); but not the less is the blessing sure to follow. Amid seeming failure or seeming success, those who are persecuted, not for opinions, but for right conduct, the true martyrs and confessors of righteousness, attain their reward at last. There is something suggestive in the fact that the last promise is the same as the first. We end, as we began, with “the kingdom of heaven;” but the path by which we have been led leads us to see that that includes all the intermediate blessings, of which at first it seemed but the prelude and beginning.

Benson Commentary

Matthew 5:10. For righteousness’ sake — Or for the sake of Christ and a good conscience; that Isaiah , 1 st, for their steady belief and profession of, and adherence to any article of Christian faith; 2d, for their performance of any duty, which they owe to God, their neighbour, or themselves, or for their obedience to the commands of God; 3d, because they cannot be prevailed on to own that to be an article of the Christian faith, or any part of Christian duty, which God hath not declared to be such; for, since this cannot be done without making profession of a lie, or pretending to believe what we see no reason to believe, to suffer on this account is evidently to suffer because we will not play the hypocrite, and give the lie to our own consciences; and therefore this, in Peter’s language, is to suffer from conscience toward God. Yea, since this cannot be done, but we must own another teacher, lawgiver, and author of our faith, besides the Lord Jesus, our sufferings for refusing to do this are truly sufferings for Christ’s sake, and such as make us happy sufferers. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven —

In a peculiar sense, as hell belongs especially to hypocrites, Matthew 24:51. And they shall receive an eminently great reward there, on account of their sufferings, and in proportion to them, Luke 6:23. And no wonder, for as their state on earth, under these persecutions, renders them conformable to their Head, and to the holy prophets and apostles, so shall they hereafter be conformed to them in glory.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:3-12 Our Saviour here gives eight characters of blessed people, which represent to us the principal graces of a Christian. 1. The poor in spirit are happy. These bring their minds to their condition, when it is a low condition. They are humble and lowly in their own eyes. They see their want, bewail their guilt, and thirst after a Redeemer. The kingdom of grace is of such; the kingdom of glory is for them. 2. Those that mourn are happy. That godly sorrow which worketh true repentance, watchfulness, a humble mind, and continual dependence for acceptance on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, with constant seeking the Holy Spirit, to cleanse away the remaining evil, seems here to be intended. Heaven is the joy of our Lord; a mountain of joy, to which our way is through a vale of tears. Such mourners shall be comforted by their God. 3. The meek are happy. The meek are those who quietly submit to God; who can bear insult; are silent, or return a soft answer; who, in their patience, keep possession of their own souls, when they can scarcely keep possession of anything else. These meek ones are happy, even in this world. Meekness promotes wealth, comfort, and safety, even in this world. 4. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are happy. Righteousness is here put for all spiritual blessings. These are purchased for us by the righteousness of Christ, confirmed by the faithfulness of God. Our desires of spiritual blessings must be earnest. Though all desires for grace are not grace, yet such a desire as this, is a desire of God's own raising, and he will not forsake the work of his own hands. 5. The merciful are happy. We must not only bear our own afflictions patiently, but we must do all we can to help those who are in misery. We must have compassion on the souls of others, and help them; pity those who are in sin, and seek to snatch them as brands out of the burning. 6. The pure in heart are happy; for they shall see God. Here holiness and happiness are fully described and put together. The heart must be purified by faith, and kept for God. Create in me such a clean heart, O God. None but the pure are capable of seeing God, nor would heaven be happiness to the impure. As God cannot endure to look upon their iniquity, so they cannot look upon his purity. 7. The peace-makers are happy. They love, and desire, and delight in peace; and study to be quiet. They keep the peace that it be not broken, and recover it when it is broken. If the peace-makers are blessed, woe to the peace-breakers! 8. Those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake are happy. This saying is peculiar to Christianity; and it is more largely insisted upon than any of the rest. Yet there is nothing in our sufferings that can merit of God; but God will provide that those who lose for him, though life itself, shall not lose by him in the end. Blessed Jesus! how different are thy maxims from those of men of this world! They call the proud happy, and admire the gay, the rich, the powerful, and the victorious. May we find mercy from the Lord; may we be owned as his children, and inherit his kingdom. With these enjoyments and hopes, we may cheerfully welcome low or painful circumstances.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Blessed are they which are persecuted - To persecute means literally to pursue; follow after, as one does a flying enemy. Here it means to vex, or oppress one, on account of his religion. They persecute others who injure their names, reputation, property, or who endanger or take their life, on account of their religious opinions.

For righteousness' sake - Because they are righteous, or are the friends of God. We are not to seek persecution. We are not to provoke it by strange sentiments or conduct; by violating the laws of civil society, or by modes of speech that are unnecessarily offensive to others. But if, in the honest effort to be Christians, and to live the life of Christians, others persecute and revile us, we are to consider this as a blessing. It is an evidence that we are the children of God, and that he will defend us. "All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," 2 Timothy 3:12.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven - They have evidence that they are Christians, and that they will be brought to heaven.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, &c.—How entirely this final beatitude has its ground in the Old Testament, is evident from the concluding words, where the encouragement held out to endure such persecutions consists in its being but a continuation of what was experienced by the Old Testament servants of God. But how, it may be asked, could such beautiful features of character provoke persecution? To this the following answers should suffice: "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." "The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil." "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." "There is yet one man (said wicked Ahab to good Jehoshaphat) by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil" (Joh 3:20; 7:7; 15:19; 2Ch 18:7). But more particularly, the seven characters here described are all in the teeth of the spirit of the world, insomuch that such hearers of this discourse as breathed that spirit must have been startled, and had their whole system of thought and action rudely dashed. Poverty of spirit runs counter to the pride of men's heart; a pensive disposition, in the view of one's universal deficiencies before God, is ill relished by the callous, indifferent, laughing, self-satisfied world; a meek and quiet spirit, taking wrong, is regarded as pusillanimous, and rasps against the proud, resentful spirit of the world; that craving after spiritual blessings rebukes but too unpleasantly the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; so does a merciful spirit the hard-heartedness of the world; purity of heart contrasts painfully with painted hypocrisy; and the peacemaker cannot easily be endured by the contentious, quarrelsome world. Thus does "righteousness" come to be "persecuted." But blessed are they who, in spite of this, dare to be righteous.

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven—As this was the reward promised to the poor in spirit—the leading one of these seven beatitudes—of course it is the proper portion of such as are persecuted for exemplifying them.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The men of the world judge those men very unhappy and miserable whom their rulers make the objects of their wrath and malice, and pursue violently to the loss of their estates, liberties, or lives, never considering the cause for which they are so pursued: but they are quite mistaken; for that man who is pursued by such violence, and hunted upon this account, because to please men he durst not sin against God, but labours to keep a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men, Acts 24:16, is a blessed man; and if he be hunted out of the kingdoms of the earth, yet he shall be hunted but to heaven, for to such men belongeth the kingdom of God in glory, Jam 1:12 1 Peter 3:14 4:13.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Blessed are they which are persecuted,.... Not for any crimes they have done, for unrighteousness and iniquity, as murderers, thieves, and evildoers, but

for righteousness sake: on account of their righteous and godly conversation, which brings upon them the hatred and enmity of the men of the world: for saints, by living righteously, separate themselves from them, and profess themselves not to belong to them; their religious life sets a brand upon, and distinguishes other persons; yea, it reproves and condemns their wicked lives and practices; and this fills them with wrath against them, and puts them on persecuting them: or by "righteousness" may be meant, a righteous cause, the cause of Christ and his Gospel; for by making a profession of Christ, showing a concern for his interest, and by engaging in a vindication of his person and truths, saints expose themselves to the rage and persecution of men: and particularly, they are persecuted for preaching, maintaining, or embracing, the doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ; because it is not of man, nor agreeable to the carnal reason of man; it is opposite to the way of justification, which men naturally receive; it excludes boasting, and is contrary to their carnal and selfish principles: persecution is either verbal with the tongue, by cruel mockings and reproachful language; or real, by deeds, such as confiscation of goods, banishment, imprisonment of body, and innumerable sorts of death: the latter seems here more especially designed, and both are expressed in the following verse; and yet the saints, though thus used, or rather abused, are happy;

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven: the same blessedness is predicated of these as of the poor in spirit, ver. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Matthew 5:10. Comp. 1 Peter 3:14; 1 Peter 4:14.

δικαιοσύν., as in Matthew 5:6 ἕνεκ. δικ., is, as to substance, not different from ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ, Matthew 5:11. In communion with Christ there is righteousness, and in this ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ is expressed the full Messianic consciousness,[396] the certain holy self-feeling of which for the persecuted begins (Acts 9:4).

To take the αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλ. τ. οὐρ. differently from Matthew 5:3 (Kienlen in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1848, p. 678: Matthew 5:5 is the entrance into the kingdom of God; Matthew 5:10, the consummation in the same, comp. Lange) is purely arbitrary. See rather the preceding remark.

[396] This putting forward the person as Lord and Master is, in Weizsäcker’s view, p. 151, a reason for regarding ver. 11 f. as a later explanation to the original text. But even in the whole train of the discourse that follows from ver. 17 onwards, such a personal assertion comes out strongly enough; comp. especially the constant symmetrical recurrence of ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, and immediately in ver. 17 the expression of the Messianic consciousness, ἦλθον, κ.τ.λ.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Matthew 5:10-12 being regarded as a transition to a new topic. his seems arbitrary. Delitsch, anxious to establish an analogy with the Decalogue, makes out ten—seven from Matthew 5:3 to Matthew 5:9, Matthew 5:10 one, Matthew 5:11 one, and Matthew 5:12, though lacking the μακάριοι, the tenth; its claim resting on the exulting words, χαίρετε καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε. This savours of Rabbinical pedantry.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10, 11. for righteousness’ sake.… for my sake] Observe these limitations. The cause in which a man suffers is everything. Many Galilæan zealots who had been persecuted, reviled, traduced, when they rose against Herod or the Roman power had no share in this blessedness.

Bengel's Gnomen

Matthew 5:10. οἱ δεδιωγμένοι, they who endure persecution) In the next verse, δεδιωγμένοι signifies, Those who have offered themselves to undergo persecution. Our Lord already announces the treatment which He and His followers will receive from the world. He unfolds this truth, however, gradually. He speaks of His yoke in ch. Matthew 11:29; of His cross in Matthew 16:24. By comparing Mark 8:34, and Matthew 10:38, it appears that He speaks of His cross to His disciples alone.—ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης, for righteousness’ sake) In the next verse, He says, for My sake; cf. ch. Matthew 10:39; Matthew 10:42, Matthew 16:25, Matthew 18:5, Matthew 19:12; Matthew 19:29.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Which are persecuted; which have been persecuted (Revised Version); οἱ δεδιωγμένοι. "Those who are harassed, hunted, spoiled. The term is properly used of wild beasts pursued by hunters, or of an enemy or malefactor in flight" (Wetstein). Our Lord, by the use of the perfect, wishes to indicate

(1) the fact that they have endured persecution, and still stand firm; and probably

(2) the condition of temporal loss to which they have been reduced by such persecution. They have "suffered the loss," possibly, "of all things," but they are "blessed." For righteouness' sake (ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης). No article (contrast ver. 6), either as indicating that for even a part of righteousness persecution can be undergone, or, and more probably, simply dwelling on the cause of persecution without idealizing it. St. Peter also says, perhaps with a reference to our Lord's words, that they who suffer διὰ δικαιοσύνην are μακάριοι (1 Peter 3:14). For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The same promise that was given to "the poor in spirit" (ver. 3) is here given to the persecuted for righteousness' sake. In the former case, poverty in the sphere of the spirit obtains the fullest possessions; here the same promise is given to temporal loss produced by faithfulness to the cause of righteousness. In ver. 3 our Lord removed all occasion for intellectual and spiritual pride. Here he comforts for temporal and social losses (cf. especially 2 Corinthians 6:10; further see ver. 3, note). Clement of Alexandria, 'Strom.,' 4:6 (p. 582, Potter)

(1) confuses this and the preceding Beatitude;

(2) gives a curious reading of some who alter the Gospels: "Blessed are they who have been persecuted through righteousness (ὑπὸ τῆς δικαιοσύνης), for they shall be perfect; and blessed are they who have been persecuted for my sake, for they shall have a place where they shall not be persecuted" (cf. Westcott, 'Introd. Gospp.,' Appendix C). Matthew 5:10