Matthew 5 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Matthew 5:1-2
After observing the large crowds, Jesus withdraws to a mountainside and His disciples follow Him. Jesus then begins to teach His disciples. What follows in chapters 5-7 is traditionally called the “Sermon on the Mount.”
Matthew 5:3-10
Jesus begins the “Sermon on the Mount” with a chiasm commonly known as the Beatitudes. To describe the citizens of His Kingdom, Jesus repeats the word “Blessed” (Makarios) – a total sense of fulfillment.
Matthew 5:3
The first statement (A) of Jesus’s chiasm focuses on having a realistic opinion of one’s self.
Matthew 5:4
The second statement (B) of Jesus’s chiasm focuses on mourning as an expression of repentance.
Matthew 5:5
The third statement (C) of Jesus’s chiasm focuses on humility and meekness.
Matthew 5:6
(D) is the first central theme of Jesus’s chiasm. It focuses on the path to gain and desire to possess social harmony and righteousness.
Matthew 5:7
Jesus’s statement is the second central theme of Jesus’s chiasm. It focuses on Jesus’s Kingdom platform of the mercy principle: Be merciful and receive mercy.
Matthew 5:8
The sixth statement (C’) of Jesus’s chiasm focuses on inner purity (purity of heart).
Matthew 5:9
The seventh statement (B’) of Jesus’s chiasm focuses on being a peacemaker.
Matthew 5:10-12
The eighth and final statement (A’) of Jesus’s Makarios chiasm deals with being righteously persecuted. Jesus reiterates this point by telling His disciples that God will reward them for their righteous living in the face of persecution.
Matthew 5:13-16
Following the chiasm often called the “Beatitudes” Jesus uses the metaphors of ‘salt’ and ‘light’ to describe His disciples and the impact they are to have upon this world.
Matthew 5:17-20
Jesus tells His disciples that He is not abolishing the law, but fulfilling what Moses and the prophets taught. However, He makes clear that professional law-keepers have insufficient righteousness to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:21-22
Jesus says that righteousness is a matter of both outwardly following the Law and inwardly reflecting the spirit behind the law. Acting in violence and harboring violent attitudes results in disharmony (unrighteousness).
Matthew 5:23-24
Concluding His example of how anger is a demonstration of disharmony (unrighteousness), Jesus shares a way this can be applied.
Matthew 5:25-26
Reconciliation is important not just for your brother, but also for someone with whom you have a dispute. Settling a wrong quickly avoids consequences that are more severe.
Matthew 5:27-28
Jesus teaches that the external sin of adultery and the internal sin of lust are both violations of God’s Covenant.
Matthew 5:29-30
Jesus uses two graphic metaphors—it is better for disciples to pluck out their eyes and cut off their hands—as a way to memorably express an important truth. It is better to deny yourself in this life for His sake than to miss living life in His kingdom and enjoying its incredible benefits.
Matthew 5:31-32
Jesus closes a loophole that men used to exploit Moses’s teaching on divorce.
Matthew 5:33-37
Jesus demonstrates that righteousness and harmony is not a matter of oaths, but plain honesty and simple truth-telling.
Matthew 5:38-42
Jesus flips the world system of ‘justice’ on its head. He tells His disciples to seek out opportunities to serve rather than looking for opportunities to exact payback under the letter of the law.
Matthew 5:43-47
Jesus offers and commands a radically different view of love than what is offered by the world.
Matthew 5:48
Jesus summarizes and commands the character standard of those who are in His kingdom.
Additional Resources
The Gospel of Matthew was written to demonstrate to the Jews of Jesus, the Messiah’s generation that He was indeed the Christ. Matthew thematically substantiates the Messianic identity of Jesus beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which ran from Abraham, the father of Israel’s people through King David who was promised to have a son who would be on Israel’s throne forever. Throughout his Gospel account Matthew makes use of numerous prophecies both explicitly stated and by way of subtle allusion to support his thesis. Matthew further makes use of parallel events in Jesus’s life to those of Messianic figures from the Old Testament (Moses, Joseph, David, etc.) to bolster his argument.
Jesus came to offer the Jews the chance to participate in the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom. To do this, they would have to receive and follow Him as their Messiah. Jesus’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Ultimately, they rejected Him as their Messiah and condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion. The Jews’ rejection of the Messiah opened the door for Gentiles to enter the kingdom (Matthew 8:11-12, 22:1-10). Matthew’s Gospel is therefore a call for the Jews repent of their murder of Jesus and to embrace Him for the divine Messiah He is.
Matthew shows how their rejection of Him and His brutal death was predicted not only by Jesus Himself, but also was foretold in the Jewish scriptures of the Messiah.
The main proof that Jesus was the Messiah was “the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12:39, 16:4). This was Jesus’s death and resurrection from the dead. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
Because Matthew’s Gospel was written to people who were already members of God’s eternal family by virtue of their faith in God’s promise to send the Messiah, Matthew emphasizes the “reward of eternal life” (aka “The Prize of Eternal Life”) rather than “the Gift of Eternal Life”. In other words, Matthew’s Gospel focuses on how to “enter the kingdom” rather than how to “be born again”.
Matthew’s Gospel demonstrates how Jesus came to fulfill the law and open a way for God’s people to participate in the Messianic kingdom if they would follow His example of worshiping God from the heart by forgiving and serving others.
For “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). If we have faith to follow the example set forth by the resurrected Messiah, whom all authority on heaven and earth has been granted (Matthew 28:18) and take up our cross for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25), then we will become great in His kingdom (Matthew 20:26).
Finally, Matthew provides extensive samples of Jesus’s teachings including “the Sermon on the Mount”, “the Little Commission”, and “the Olivet Discourse” and many parables, alongside accounts of numerous miracles and wonders, personal moments with His twelve disciples, interactions with seekers, and increasingly as his Gospel account progresses: challenges and confrontations with His adversaries – the Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests.
Chapters 5-7 form the “Sermon on the Mount.” Jesus withdraws from the large crowds and focuses on teaching His disciples. This is Jesus’ kingdom platform. Jesus is the second Moses prophesied by Moses, giving a new word from God from a different mountain. Jesus’s sermon has the same purpose as the word from God on Mount Sinai—it shows humans how to live constructively in fellowship with God and one another. Jesus’s emphasis is on the spirit behind the law. Without a change of heart, rules don’t work. Jesus initiated a new covenant, where the law was written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31; Matthew 25:28).
The Sermon on the Mount transitions from Jesus speaking to “large crowds” to speaking to a “crowd” that consists of His disciples. The “large crowds” included Gentiles from the surrounding nations who had come to be healed of physical illnesses. It is likely Jesus would have spoken Greek to the “large crowds” as that was the language of commerce of that time. It is widely held that Jesus typically taught in Aramaic when speaking to Jews. It was the street language spoken by the Jews after they returned from Exile in Babylon.
But Jesus, like most Jews of His day would also have been multilingual. He would certainly have been able to read and speak from the Hebrew scriptures. And, as mentioned, He also would most certainly have known Greek, the common language of the Ancient world. It is likely that his adoptive father Joseph would have had work as a tradesman in the nearby Roman city of Sepphoris, which would have required knowing some Greek.
He might have also learned some Latin, the official language of the Roman government. Matthew may have originally written all or part of his Gospel narrative of Jesus the Messiah in Aramaic, Hebrew, or Greek. But regardless of which language He originally wrote in, his gospel was preserved in Greek. It is from Greek manuscripts that all our translations are ultimately based.
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