translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: MAT

label: NET study note

text: The term Blessed introduces the first of several beatitudes promising blessing to those whom God cares for. They serve as an invitation to come into the grace God offers.


text: The poor in spirit is a reference to the “pious poor” for whom God especially cares. See Ps 14:6; 22:24; 25:16; 34:6; 40:17; 69:29 .


text: The present tense ( belongs ) here is significant. Jesus makes the kingdom and its blessings currently available. This phrase is unlike the others in the list with the possessive pronoun being emphasized.


text: The promise they will be comforted is the first of several “reversals” noted in these promises. The beatitudes and the reversals that accompany them serve in the sermon as an invitation to enter into God’s care, because one can know God cares for those who turn to him.


text: Those who hunger are people like the poor Jesus has already mentioned. The term has OT roots both in conjunction with the poor ( Isa 32:6-7; 58:6-7, 9-10 ; Ezek 18:7, 16 ) or by itself ( Ps 37:16-19; 107:9 ).


text: Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.


text: The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its flavor since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested that the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens; under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud ( b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be that both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24 , where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.


text: See the note on Pharisees in 3:7 .


text: A quotation from Exod 20:13 ; Deut 5:17 .


text: A quotation from Exod 20:14 ; Deut 5:17 .


text: On this word here and in the following verse, see the note on the word hell in 5:22 .


text: A quotation from Deut 24:1 .


text: A quotation from Lev 19:12 .


text: A quotation from Exod 21:24 ; Lev 24:20 .


text: If anyone forces you to go one mile. In NT times Roman soldiers had the authority to press civilians into service to carry loads for them.


text: Jesus advocates a generosity and a desire to meet those in dire need with the command give to the one who asks you . This may allude to begging; giving alms was viewed highly in the ancient world ( Matt 6:1-4 ; Deut 15:7-11 ).


text: A quotation from Lev 19:18 .


text: The tax collectors would bid to collect taxes for the Roman government and then add a surcharge, which they kept. Since tax collectors worked for Rome, they were viewed as traitors to their own people and were not well liked.


text: This remark echoes the more common OT statements like Lev 19:2 or Deut 18:13 : “you must be holy as I am holy.”