Matthew 5:6

Shall be filled (χορτασθήσονται) A very strong and graphic word, originally applied to the feeding and fattening of animals in a stall. In Revelation 19:21, it is used of the filling of the birds with the flesh of God's enemies. Also of the multitudes fed with the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14:20; Mark 8:8; Luke 9:17). It is manifestly appropriate here as expressing the complete satisfaction of spiritual hunger and thirst. Hence Wycliffe's rendering, fulfilled, is strictly true to the original.

Matthew 5:6 . Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness — That, instead of desiring the possessions of others, and endeavouring to obtain them by violence or deceit; and instead of coveting this world’s goods, sincerely, earnestly, and perseveringly desire universal holiness of heart and life, or deliverance from all sinful dispositions and practices, and a complete restoration of their souls to the image of God in which they were created: a just and beautiful description this of that fervent, constant, increasing, restless, and active desire; of that holy ardour and vehemence of soul in pursuit of the most eminent degrees of universal goodness which will end in complete satisfaction: For they shall be filled — Shall obtain the righteousness which they hunger and thirst for, and be abundantly satisfied therewith.

Matthew 5:6 . If the object of the hunger and thirst had not been mentioned this fourth Beatitude would have been parallel in form to the second: Blessed the hungry, for they shall be filled. We should then have another absolute affirmation requiring qualification, and raising the question: What sort of hunger is it which is sure to be satisfied? That might be the original form of the aphorism as given in Luke. The answer to the question it suggests is similar to that given under Beatitude 1. The hunger whose satisfaction is sure is that which contains its own satisfaction. It is the hunger for moral good. The passion for righteousness is righteousness in the deepest sense of the word.— πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες . These verbs, like all verbs of desire, ordinarily take the genitive of the object. Here and in other places in N. T. they take the accusative, the object being of a spiritual nature, which one not merely desires to participate in, but to possess in whole. Winer, § xxx. 10, thus distinguishes the two constructions: διψᾶν φιλοσοφίας = to thirst after philosophy; διψ . φιλοσοφίαν = to thirst for possession of philosophy as a whole. Some have thought that διὰ is to be understood before δικ ., and that the meaning is: “Blessed they who suffer natural hunger and thirst on account of righteousness”. Grotius understands by δικ . the way or doctrine of righteousness.

(6) Which do hunger and thirst. —We seem in this to hear the lesson which our Lord had learnt from the recent experience of the wilderness. The craving of bodily hunger has become a parable of that higher yearning after righteousness, that thirsting after God, even as the hart desireth the water-brooks, which is certain, in the end, to gain its full fruition. Desires after earthly goods are frustrated, or end in satiety and weariness. To this only belongs the promise that they who thus “hunger and thirst” shall assuredly be filled. The same thoughts meet us again in the Gospel which in many respects is so unlike that of St. Matthew. (Comp. John 4:14 ; John 4:32 ).

6. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled—"shall be saturated." "From this verse," says Tholuck, "the reference to the Old Testament background ceases." Surprising! On the contrary, none of these beatitudes is more manifestly dug out of the rich mine of the Old Testament. Indeed, how could any one who found in the Old Testament "the poor in spirit," and "the mourners in Zion," doubt that he would also find those same characters also craving that righteousness which they feel and mourn their want of? But what is the precise meaning of "righteousness" here? Lutheran expositors, and some of our own, seem to have a hankering after that more restricted sense of the term in which it is used with reference to the sinner's justification before God. (See Jer 23:6; Isa 45:24; Ro 4:6; 2Co 5:21). But, in so comprehensive a saying as this, it is clearly to be taken—as in Mt 5:10 also—in a much wider sense, as denoting that spiritual and entire conformity to the law of God, under the want of which the saints groan, and the possession of which constitutes the only true saintship. The Old Testament dwells much on this righteousness, as that which alone God regards with approbation (Ps 11:7; 23:3; 106:3; Pr 12:28; 16:31; Isa 64:5, &c.).

As hunger and thirst are the keenest of our appetites, our Lord, by employing this figure here, plainly means "those whose deepest cravings are after spiritual blessings." And in the Old Testament we find this craving variously expressed: "Hearken unto Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord" (Isa 51:1); "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," exclaimed dying Jacob (Ge 49:18); "My soul," says the sweet Psalmist, "breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all times" (Ps 119:20): and in similar breathings does he give vent to his deepest longings in that and other Psalms. Well, our Lord just takes up here—this blessed frame of mind, representing it as—the surest pledge of the coveted supplies, as it is the best preparative, and indeed itself the beginning of them. "They shall be saturated," He says; they shall not only have what they so highly value and long to possess, but they shall have their fill of it. Not here, however. Even in the Old Testament this was well understood. "Deliver me," says the Psalmist, in language which, beyond all doubt, stretches beyond the present scene, "from men of the world, which have their portion in this life: as for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps 17:13-15). The foregoing beatitudes—the first four—represent the saints rather as conscious of their need of salvation, and acting suitably to that character, than as possessed of it.

Matthew 5:6 . Οἱ πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες , κ . τ . λ , who hunger and thirst , etc.) who feel that of themselves they have no righteousness by which they may approve themselves either to God or man, and eagerly long for it. Faith is here described, suitably to the beginning of the New Testament.— τὴν δικαιοσύνην , righteousness ) Our Lord plainly declares Himself here to be the author of righteousness. That which is signified here is not the right ( jus ) of the human, but of the Divine tribunal. This verse is the centre of this passage, and the theme of the whole sermon. Our Lord does not say, Blessed are the righteous , as he presently says, Blessed are the merciful , etc.; but, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness . Pure righteousness will become their portion in due time. (See 2 Peter 3:13 ; Isaiah 60:21 .)— χορτασθήσονται , they shall be filled ) with righteousness; see Romans 14:17 . This was the meat of Jesus himself: see John 4:34 ; cf. Matthew 3:15 . This satisfying fulness He proposes to His followers in the whole of this sermon, and promises and offers them in this very verse.

You see many men and women hungering and thirsting after sensual satisfactions, or after sensible enjoyments; these are unhappy, miserable men, they often hunger and thirst, and are not satisfied: but I will show you a more excellent way, a more excellent object of your hunger and thirst, that is, righteousness; both a righteousness wherein you may stand before God, which is in me, Jeremiah 23:6 , and is revealed from faith to faith, Romans 1:17 , and the righteousness of a holy life. Those are blessed men, who first seek the kingdom of heaven, and the righteousness thereof, God will fill these men with what they desire, Isaiah 55:1,2 Lu 1:53 . There are some who understand this text of a hungering after the clearing of their innocency towards men, which is natural to just and innocent persons falsely accused and traduced, and they have a promise of being filled, Psalm 37:6 ; but I see no reason to conclude this the sense of this text.

Matthew 5:6 . Concerning πεινῆν and διψῆν , which regularly govern the genitive with the accusative , where the object is conceived as that which endures the action, see examples of this rare use in Kypke, Obss . I. p. 17; Loesner, Obss . p. 11; and especially Winer, p. 192 [E. T. 256]. The metaphorical meaning ( Isaiah 55:1 ; Psalm 42:3 ; Sir 51:24 ) of the verbs is that of longing desire . See Pricaeus and Wetstein in loc. ; as regards διψ ., also Jacobs, ad Anthol . VI. p. 26, VIII. p. 233. The δικαιοσύνη , however, is the righteousness , the establishment of which was the aim of Christ’s work, and the condition of participation in the Messiah’s kingdom. They are designated as such whose “great earnestness, desire, and fervour” (Luther) are directed towards a moral constitution free from guilt. Luther, besides, strikingly draws attention to this, that before all these portions of the beatitudes, “faith must first be there as the tree and headpiece or sum” of righteousness. χορτασθήσονται ] not generally regni Messiani felicitate (Fritzsche), but, as the context requires, δικαιοσύνης : they will obtain righteousness in full measure, namely, in being declared to be righteous ( Romans 5:19 ; Galatians 5:5 , and remarks thereon) at the judgment of the Messiah ( Matthew 25:34 ), and then live for ever in perfect righteousness, so that God will be all in all ( 1 Corinthians 15:28 ). Comp. 2 Peter 3:13 . On the figurative χορτάζ ., Psalm 17:15 ; Psalm 107:9 .