An upside down economy

The Third Beatitude

Blessed are the humble people, because they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5).

A pattern is going on by this third beatitude. Jesus calls people blessed whom the world would never call blessed. In this case, those blessed are the humble people, but once again the blessing is a future one.

Today’s post is a difficult one because to truly understand this verse we must delve into the original languages. So bear with me.

The humble ones

When we look at a variety of translations, “meek” is the word most often used to translate the Greek term praus in this verse. Others use “lowly” or “gentle” or “humble.” 

Interpretation alert! Whenever you compare translations and see so much variety, it means the translators were wrestling over the best way to render a term into English

“Meek” is what the King James Version used and translations connected to it—RSV, ASV, NRSV, ESV, NKJV—also NIV. Unfortunately, meek has developed into a word implying weakness of character. 

So we need to dig a bit deeper to understand clearly what Jesus is saying (and why the other translations).

In this beatitude Jesus is virtually quoting a verse from the Psalms.

Psalm 37:11a reads (in English), “The humble will inherit the land.” Jesus simply adds “Blessed” and “because” to form the beatitude. And like the previous beatitude, at least his Jewish listeners would immediately pick up on this quotation, whether from Greek or Hebrew. Jesus’s vocabulary, if he is teaching in Greek, is the same: praus (humble), klēreō (inherit), and gē (earth or land).

Still the word praus is the most difficult to grasp. It does carry the basic idea of gentle or mild (the true sense of meek), but if we pick up the underlying Hebrew, we get a clearer picture of Jesus’s connotation.

The Greek translation of Psalm 37 uses praeis (plural of praus) to translate Hebrew ‘anawim. Thoughout the Hebrew Bible ‘anawim (plural of ‘anaw) as a group of people is translated primarily the “poor” “humble,” or “lowly,” (and Greek uses ptōchos, praus, and tapeinos, respectively).

The ‘anawim were those bent over from life, normally overlooked, and especially powerless against the status quo against them—poor in every way. Their “meekness” came in their acceptance of their situation while still remaining faithful to God.

So in using this word from Psalm 37, Jesus has in mind much more than the attitude of humility or meekness or gentleness. He instead has a more visceral intent: blessed are those ignored by society, but who accept their situation because they know God has something way better for them. If the first beatitude pointed to poverty of spirit, this one points more toward poverty itself.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus preaches the good news to the poor.

He proclaims that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

He encourages the Pharisees to take the last seat rather that the most important one.

He notices the widow placing her penny in the temple offering box.

And he invites those who labor and are burdened to come to him for rest because he is humble (praus) and lowly (tapeinos) in heart.

When he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, Matthew quotes Zechariah: “Look, daughter of Zion, behold your king comes to you humble (praus) and riding upon a donkey …”

Jesus himself leads the way in this humility.

Anyone listening to Jesus, whether the low or the high in society, would recognize that Jesus was speaking blessing to those society would never see as blessed. Often these people became the scapegoats of society, blamed for far more than they could possibly have done. Certainly they were the most abused, upon whose labor riches were built upon by the powerful—slaves, peasants, women. These were the people who owned nothing to pass on to their children, almost the very definition of blessing to the average person.

They will inherit the land

On its face, this beatitude seems improbable, even impossible. In what world do the powerless and abused inherit the land? This is where we must go back to Psalm 37 for the context of the statement there. Psalm 37:9-13 reads:

For the wicked shall be cut off, but those waiting on Yahweh shall inherit the land, and still a little while, there will be no wicked; you will look for his place and find nothing. But the humble ones will inherit the land and they will delight in the abundance of peace. The wicked plots against the righteous person and gnashes his teeth over him. My Lord laughs at him because He sees that his day is coming.

Jesus spoke words of hope in this beatitude that the oppressors, the wicked, the powerful would be no more; judgment was coming—and the land would be there for the taking. The hope of peaceful abundance, of having what was needed for a life, was on the horizon.

I don’t think that Jesus had any illusions that the powerful would willingly give their possessions to the powerless in the world system (economy). He was instead creating a different vision, a vision beyond the seen to the unseen.

To see things from God’s view.

Knowing that God was laughing at the end of the powerful and ready to bless the powerless.

This was indeed a future hope, hope for life in the kingdom of God, when God creates the new heavens and the new earth, the vision of which we see in the prophets before and in Romans 8 and Revelation 21-22. 

In his crucifixion, Jesus identified to the extreme with the humble as the fully rejected one, but in the resurrection, he inherited the entire universe and brought all who follow him into that inheritance.

And to all those listening to the beatitude the question persisted: Which group are you a part of?

The kingdom of God (with its blessings) consists of the poor in spirit, the mourners, the humble ones.

Do you look down on these people or are you one of them?

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An Invitation

Are you interested in learning New Testament Greek? I will be teaching an intensive course with 50 hours of live instruction via Zoom from June to August. Please contact me at jack.painter@gmail.com or go to https://www.rightonmission.org/intro-to-new-testament-greek for more information. I would love to have you!

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Observations on the Greek text

Thus far these observations have been free to all readers and free subscribers. Subsequently, they will be available for paid subscribers. Besides observations on the Greek texts that I address, later I plan to add both beginning and advanced Greek instruction for paid subscribers.

Blessed are the humble people, because they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5).

μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς ὅτι αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσιν τὴν γῆν.

This beatitude has virtually the same form as the previous one with one exception. “Will be comforted (παρακληθήσονται)” is passive voice but “will inherit (κληρονομήσουσιν)” is active voice. But because the inheritance depends on another entity (in this case God who bestows the inheritance), the practical force is the same. We could say, “Will be comforted (by God)” in the first and “will inherit the earth (from God)” in the second.

As to the translations of praus, the Greek dictionaries (aka lexicons) give gentle, humble considerate, meek, tranquil, serene, affable. Sometimes the particular sense must be adduced by additional context, in this case looking at the Hebrew text for its underlying sense.

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