Luke 6:20-21

Vers. 20 and 21. “ And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. 21. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. ”

The disciples are the constant hearers of Jesus, amongst whom He has just assigned a distinct place to His apostles. Luke does not say that Jesus spoke to them alone. He spoke to all the people, but regarding them as the representatives of the new order of things which He was about to institute. In Matthew, αὐτούς, Luke 6:2 (He taught them), comprises both the people and the disciples, Luke 6:1.

This commencement of the Sermon on the Mount breathes a sentiment of the deepest joy. In these disciples immediately about Him, and in this multitude surrounding Him in orderly ranks, all eager to hear the word of God, Jesus beholds the first appearance of the true Israel, the true people of the kingdom. He surveys with deep joy this congregation which His Father has brought together for Him, and begins to speak. It must have been a peculiarly solemn moment; comp. the similar picture, Matthew 5:1-2.

This assembly was chiefly composed of persons belonging to the poor and suffering classes. Jesus knew it; He recognises in this a higher will, and in His first words He does homage to this divine dispensation. Πτωχός, which we translate poor, comes from πτώσσω, to make oneself little, to crouch, and conveys the idea of humiliation rather than of poverty (πένης). Πεινῶντες, the hungry (a word connected with πένης), denotes rather those whom poverty condemns to a life of toil and privation. This second term marks the transition to the third, those who weep, amongst whom must be numbered all classes of persons who are weighed down by the trials of life. All those persons who, in ordinary language, are called unhappy, Jesus salutes with the epithet μακάριοι, blessed. This word answers to the שׁרֵי û אִַ, felicitates, of the O. T. (Psa 1:1 and elsewhere). The idea is the same as in numerous passages in which the poor and despised are spoken of as God's chosen ones, not because poverty and suffering are in themselves a title to His blessing; but they dispose the soul to those meek and lowly dispositions which qualify them to receive it, just as, on the other hand, prosperity and riches dispose the heart to be proud and hard. In the very composition of this congregation, Jesus sees a proof of this fact of experience so often expressed in the O. T. The joy which He feels at this sight arises from the magnificent promises which He can offer to such hearers.

The kingdom of God is a state of things in which the will of God reigns supreme. This state is realized first of all in the hearts of men, in the heart it may be of a single man, but speedily in the hearts of a great number; and eventually there will come a day when, all rebellious elements having been vanquished or taken away, it will be found in the hearts of all. It is an order of things, therefore, which, from being inward and individual, tends to become outward and social, until at length it shall take possession of the entire domain of human life, and appear as a distinct epoch in history. Since this glorious state as yet exists in a perfect manner only in a higher sphere, it is also called the kingdom of heaven (the ordinary term in Matthew).

Luke says: is not shall be yours; which denotes partial present possession, and a right to perfect future possession.

But are men members of this kingdom simply through being poor and suffering? The answer to this question is to be found in what precedes, and in such passages as Isaiah 66:2: “To whom will I look? saith the Lord. To him who is poor (עָנִי, H6714) and of a broken spirit, and who trembles at my word. ” It is to hearts which suffering has broken that Jesus brings the blessings of the kingdom.

These blessings are primarily spiritual pardon and holiness. But outward blessings cannot fail to follow them; and this notion is also contained in the idea of a kingdom of God, for glory is the crown of grace. The words of Jesus contain, therefore, the following succession of ideas: temporal abasement, from which come humiliation and sighing after God; then spiritual graces, crowned with outward blessings. The same connection of ideas explains the beatitudes that follow. Luke 6:21 a: temporal poverty (being hungry) leads the soul to the need of God and of His grace (Psa 42:1); then out of the satisfaction of this spiritual hunger and thirst arises full outward satisfaction (being filled). Luke 6:21 b: with tears shed over temporal misfortunes, is easily connected the mourning of the soul for its sins; the latter draws down the unspeakable consolations of divine love, which eventually raise the soul to the triumph of perfect joy. The terms κλαίειν, to sob, γελᾷν, to laugh, cannot well be literally rendered here. They denote a grief and joy which find outward demonstration; comp. Psalms 126:2, “Our mouth was filled with laughter,” and Paul's καυχᾶσθαι ἐν Θεῷ, to joy in God (Romans 5:11). The text of Matthew presents here two important differences: 1 st. He employs the third person instead of the second: “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” etc. The beatitudes, which in Luke are addressed directly to the hearers, are presented here under the form of general maxims and moral sentences. 2 d. In Matthew, these maxims have an exclusively spiritual meaning: “the poor in spirit, they who hunger after righteousness. ” Here interpreters are divided, some maintaining that Matthew has spiritualized the words of Jesus; others (as Keim), that Luke, under the influence of a prejudice against riches, has given to these blessings a grossly temporal meaning. Two things appear evident to us: (1) That the direct form of address in Luke, “ Ye,” can alone be historically accurate: Jesus was speaking to His hearers, not discoursing before them. (2) That this first difference has led to the second; having adopted the third person, and given the beatitudes that Maschal form so often found in the didactic parts of the O. T. (Psalms, Proverbs), Matthew was obliged to bring out expressly in the text of the discourse those moral aims which are inherent in the very persons of the poor whom Jesus addresses directly in Luke, and without which these words, in this abstract form, would have been somewhat too unqualified. How could one say, without qualification, Blessed are the poor, the hungry? Temporal sufferings of themselves could not be a pledge of salvation. On the other hand, the form, Blessed are ye poor, ye hungry, in Luke, renders all such explanation superfluous. For Jesus, when He spoke thus, was addressing particular concrete poor and afflicted, whom He already recognised as His disciples, as believers, and whom He regarded as the representatives of that new people which He was come to install in the earth. That they were such attentive hearers sufficiently proved that they were of the number of those in whom temporal sufferings had awakened the need of divine consolation, that they belonged to those labouring and heavyladen souls whom He was sent to lead to rest (Matthew 11:29), and that they hungered, not for material bread only, but for the bread of life, for the word of God, for God Himself. The qualification which Matthew was necessarily obliged to add, in order to limit the application of the beatitudes, in the general form which he gives to them, is in Luke then implied in this ye, which was only addressed to poor believers. These two differences between Matthew and Luke are very significant. They seem to me to prove: (1) that the text of Luke is a more exact report of the discourse than Matthew's; (2) that Matthew's version was originally made with a didactic rather than a historical design, and consequently that it formed part of a collection of discourses in which the teaching of Jesus was set forth without regard to the particular circumstances under which He gave it, before it entered into the historical framework in which we find it contained at the present day.