Luke 6:22,23

Vers. 22 and 23. “ Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. ”

This fourth beatitude is completely accounted for, in Luke, by the scenes of violent hostility which had already taken place. It is not so well accounted for in Matthew, who places the Sermon on the Mount at the opening of the ministry of Jesus.

In Matthew, this saying, like the preceding, has the abstract form of a moral maxim: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But Jesus was certainly not giving utterance here to abstract principles of Christian morality; He spoke as a living man to living men. Besides, Matthew himself passes, in the next verse, to the form of address adopted by Luke from the commencement.

The explanatory adjunct, for righteousness' sake, in Matthew, is to be ascribed to the same cause as the similar qualifications in the preceding beatitudes.

By the pres. ἔστε, “happy are ye,” Jesus transports His hearers directly into this immediate future.

The term ἀφορίζειν, to separate, refers to exclusion from the synagogue (John 9:22).

The strange expression, cast out your name, is explained in very jejune fashion, both by Bleek, to pronounce the name with disgust, and by De Wette and Meyer, to refuse altogether to pronounce it. It refers rather to the expunging of the name from the synagogue roll of membership. There is not, on this account, any tautology of the preceding idea. To separate, to insult, indicated acts of unpremeditated violence; to erase the name is a permanent measure taken with deliberation and coolness. Πονηρόν, evil, as an epitome of every kind of wickedness. In their accounts of this saying, this is the only word left which Matthew and Luke have in common.

Instead of for the Son of man's sake, Matthew says for my sake. The latter expression denotes attachment to the person of Jesus; the former faith in His Messianic character, as the perfect representative of humanity. On this point also Luke appears to me to have preserved the true text of this saying; it is with His work that Jesus here wishes to connect the idea of persecution. This idea of submission to persecution along with, and for the sake of, the Messiah, was so foreign to the Jewish point of view, that Jesus feels He must justify it. The sufferings of the adherents of Jesus will only be a continuation of the sufferings of the prophets of Jehovah. This is the great matter of consolation that He offers them. They will be, by their very sufferings, raised to the rank of the old prophets; the recompense of the Elijahs and Isaiahs will become theirs.

The reading κατὰ τὰ αὐτά, in the same manner, appears preferable to the received reading κατὰ ταῦτα, in this manner. Τά and αὐτά have probably been made into one word. The imperf. ἐποίουν (treated) indicates habit.

The pronoun αὐτῶν, their fathers, is dictated by the idea that the disciples belong already to a new order of things. The word their serves as a transition to the woes which follow, addressed to the heads of the existing order of things.