Matthew 5:3–6; Luke 6:20–21: Happiness is mourning unrighteousness, rejoicing over forgiveness

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In part 2 of our deep dive into Messiah Yeshua’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-36), we explore the Beatitudes and discover how we can find true happiness through sorrow over life apart from the Creator and joy over Heaven’s Anointed One who heals the pain.

Yeshua is the ultimate One Who ascends to and descends from Heaven, giving us a true witness of the words of God.

Yeshua is also the ultimate “open space” of freedom and safety, out of the bondage and confinement.

So, when Yeshua expounded upon the TaNaK (Hebrew acronym for Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings), i.e., the “Old Testament”), He indeed spoke accurately that the words of God communicated through Moshe and the prophets point one toward Heaven, closer to the mind of the Maker, rather than back to bondage.

Whether it be the Sermon on the Mount or the the Sermon on the plain, you are seeing two pictures of what the Maschiach is doing.

This same sermon was recorded by both the Apostle Matthew and the physician Luke, who was a protege of the Apostle Paul.

Matthew shows us the coming conquering King while Luke shows us how the Messiah as the Suffering Servant, the God cares about the here and now.

In the message Luke recorded, Yeshua is echoing the teachings of the Prophets, that the sufferings of this world are tough but aren’t eternal, aren’t the way things should be.

God hasn’t overlooked or forgotten the plight of the physically poor, hungry, grieved or persecuted.

The focus on the physical, king among the people tone of Luke’s message has prompted some interpreters to see the fulfillment of the Suffering Servant imagery revealed in the Prophets. Isaiah 53 is not the only picture of the suffering servant.

Matthew’s record doesn’t have woes as part of the his recording of the long message in chapters 5–7.

Yeshua, like the prophets before Him, railed against those who hypocritically getting accolades for piety in the present while storing up wickedness.

Matthew records Yeshua’s “woes” against certain Pharisees is leveled in Matthew 23, which is the chapter before Matthew 24, where Yeshua tells His disciples what will happen in the last days.

Let’s look at some Greek and Hebrew terms which will help us understand today’s reading.

• εὐλογητός eulogētos (G2128) is used in the Septuagint to translate ברוך barukh (H1288). This word, eulogētos, we usually see primarily in the English term, eulogy, which is a term that is usually used in the context of a funeral or a memorial service when you speak some last kind words about a deceased person.
• μακάριοι οἱ makarioi hoi (G3107) is used in Luke and Matthew for “blessed/happy are you.” Makarios appears 68 times in the Septuagint, usually to translate אשׁרי ashrei (H035), or “happiness.”

Uses of makarios in the Psalms sound similar to the “Beatitudes” (Middle English for “blessed”):

• “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!” (Psa. 32:1)
• “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!” (Psa. 1:1)

This also is hungering after righteousness.

“Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O LORD, And whom You teach out of Your law; That You may grant him relief from the days of adversity, Until a pit is dug for the wicked.” (Psa. 94:12–13)

This may not sound like a “happy” situation, but it is. The moment of chastening is hard, and the adversity of life is difficult. However, “relief” comes from following the path of the LORD and not deviating toward paths that lead you to the “pit,” of destruction when the LORD finally brings the reign of misery because of wickedness to an end. It’s not a happy time to be chastened by it’s much better than the alternative of eternal death. We don’t want God to be indifferent to us when we are wandering down the wrong path.

The Greek word for woe in Luke is ὀυαί· ouai (G3759), used in the Septuagint to translate:

אוי oy (H0188) is used 24 times in the Hebrew Scriptures for “woe! an impassioned expression of grief and despair” or “ah! alas! threatening.”

• A variation is אי ee (H337), which can be the adverb not or be the interjection alas! An example is the name of Phineas’ son אי–כבוד Ichabad, or “Alas! Not-glory!”

“Woe [אי] to you, O land, whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning. Blessed [אשרי] are you, O land, whose king is of nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time — for strength and not for drunkenness” (Eccl. 10:16–17)

הוי hoy (H1945) or הו ho (H1930) are used for a “cry of joy: ah! alas! … grievous threatening cry of the prophets … encouraging (as in the Syriac hāwāy) ha!” (The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament)

We see in the prophets that the Lord goes around in marks the foreheads of those who weep over the conditions that are going on. So are you concerned about the horrible spiritual decline that is going on or not?

These phrases such as oy, ee, hoy or ho are interjections. They’re kind of like when you talk about emotions are just coming in right out of you.

How are are you responding to the things that are going on in the world? How are you responding to the words that the Lord has revealed? How are you responding to the revelation that the Maschiach has come?

We see the poor in spirit recorded as being rewarded in Luke 6:20 and Matthew 5:3 versus the rich who are punished in Luke 6:24.

This focus on the poor sounds similar to what we read in Yeshua’s quoting from Isa. 61:1 about the mission of the Messiah.

In Isaiah 61–62, God reveals how He will reverse the status quo. So it’s interesting when you see in this passage, that you’ve got good news, and bad news. And you see the recipients on both sides, recipients of the good news and recipients of the bad news. We see how the narrative boomerangs on those who did not go in the right direction.

So what then is under the hood of Isaiah 61. Afflicted is translated from ענו anav (H6035), which is used in Qumran and Hebrew codices for עני.

The origin comes from “crouching” or “bowing” before someone, particularly God. (Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament)

The Septuagint translates ענוים in the passage as πτωχοῖς ptōchois, which is what poor is translated from in Luke 6:20.

The root πτωχός ptōchos (G4434) comes from ptōssō, which means “to be thoroughly frightened, to cower down or hide oneself for fear.” Ptōchos communicates “one who slinks and crouches, often involving the idea of roving about in wretchedness.” The word also expresses the idea of being humbled, bringing yourself lower than the other person.

This sense of humbling we read about in Isaiah 61-62 was not only from lack of material goods but also crushing of the heart, the seat of mind and emotions. Isaiah was written in the time of the Babylonian Exile. Their great nation has been brought very low and their greatest and brightest scholars and wisee men were taken away first to serve the Babylonians.

This anointing of the Servant in Isaiah 61 was to address:

• Fear about survival.
• Hopelessness.
• Yearning for freedom.

The Dead Sea Scrolls versions of Isa. 61:1 show that the freedom God promised was more than physical freedom:

• “to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom [פקח־קוח peqach-qoach, H6495] to prisoners” (Isa. 61:1, Masoretic Text)
  • A NASB margin note has the alternate reading of “opening to the prisoners.”
  • פקח usually is translated as open, often for opening the eyes.
• “to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isa. 61:1 DSS)

• • A DSS margin note has the alternate reading of “opening of the eyes for the prisoners.”
  • The Septuagint agrees with the DSS: κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν kēryxai aichmalōtois aphesin kai typhlois anablepsin “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind” (Isa. 61:1, LXX)

There are many people who think they are free but they actually aren’t. They think they are liberated but they are actually in a prison.

When the Gospels record Yeshua’s reading from Isaiah 61 in his sermon in the synagogue, they are using the Septuagint version. Were the apostles playing fast and loose with their quotations from the TaNaK? No, they were not.

So what you have recorded in the gospels from the Septuiagint captures the ideas as recorded in the Dead Sea Scrolls (written in 300–100 B.C.) a little bit closer than the Masoretic text (earliest versions existing now date to A.D. 800–1300).

That’s why it’s kind of nice if you have access to the Dead Sea Scrolls translation of the scriptures. Now, the sad part is, is that if you’re wanting to study a text from the book of Isaiah, you’re pretty much in luck. There’s a nearly complete version of that from the Dead Sea Scrolls. But if if you’re wanting to compare one of the other TaNaK books , it’s kind of a crapshoot, because the other books of the TaNak are in small, tiny pieces. There are large sections that are lost to the ravages of time.

Isa. 61:7 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which makes more sense of who gets what with this reversal:

“Instead of your shame [you will receive] double, and instead of dishonor they will rejoice in your lot; therefore you will inherit a double portion in their land, everlasting joy will be yours.” (Isa. 61:7, DSS (1QIsaa))

Interestingly, the Septuagint has the third-person phrasing of this verse found in the Masoretic Text.

The Servant would preach the favorable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance, i.e., that the Kingdom of Heaven was coming.

When Yeshua stood up in the synagogue, and said, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The folks He was talking to knew what the rest of all that was. They knew that Yeshua was saying that they were living out the curses.

Yeshua was saying that this is no longer a prophecy of coming events. This is prophecy of current events. This is happening to you now.

The question always comes in is, are you aware of it? Do you even care? That’s the message.

At the time of the prophecy through Isaiah, Israel was living out the curses the LORD promised in Deuteronomy 28:

“ ‘Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.’ ” (Deut. 28:47–48)

This chapter has a horrific foretelling of barbarity between people, even between family members, because the people of God walked away from gift of being the LORD’s lifeline to the world.

The good news is that the prophecy continues in Isaiah 61 is that the Servant of the Lord would turn this morning into gladness, and turn this indifference this apathy around into praise.

So one of the nice parts, in the Septuagint translation of this as it says, instead of a spirit of fainting, it’s a spirit of weariness. Are you weary with the way things are going? Are you weary with the way life is and with the way the world is? Are you weary with it? Or have you just gotten used to it as the proverbial frog in the pot? The temperature just keeps getting higher and higher? You just don’t even care?

Sometimes people likes the evil because they are “free” to do what they want? It’s more comforting to go the easy way than the hard way.

It’s because judgment is removed. Mm hmm. If they aren’t getting in trouble for what they’re doing, I can do anything I want. And there’s no judgment. It can be comforting, unless you know what’s going to happen.

And one of the things we’ll see is that, even when the judgment does come, do you even care why it’s coming? Or do you just shake your fist at the sky? Shake your fist and start thrashing about like a caged animal?

Like I mentioned earlier, the Septuagint translates “instead of a spirit of fainting” (Isa. 61:3) as “instead of a spirit of weariness” (LXX).

• כהה kayheh (H3544) can be rendered dim, dull or faint, as in eyesight or a burning wick (BDB lexicon).
• ἀκηδίας akēdias comes from α, for against or not, and κήδω dedo, to care (BDAG lexicon). This is apathy.

When the prophets warn that there will come a time when people see evil as good and good as evil, that’s an example not being able to see anymore. There’s a 50 cent word from the psychological circles — projection — where the very thing that you’re doing, you then say other people are doing, throwing that off onto somebody else. We see it all the time.

Here in Isaiah 61, the Servant talks about planting “oaks of righteousness” in the Land as a testimony to the LORD’s glory. During Sukkot time, we are reminded that trees in the Bible are symbols of types of people. Those “oaks” would restore the ruined cities, fill the long-desolate land and return Israel to a place of prominence among the nations.

What do oaks symbolize? It’s a very strong and hearty tree. It’s dependable and lives for a long time. They are a symbol of longevity. You’ve got this picture from generation to generation to generation generation, that oak tree is still there, and it keeps going.

Another kind of tree that symbolize the righteous is the palm tree. How does a palm tree respond in a hurricane? It bends way over. The wind may take away most of their fronds but the palm tree bounces right back up. They can take a lot of punishment and bounce right back up.

The palm tree and the oak tree provide us two pictures of the righteous in the midst of adversity.

What does this restoration look like post-exile for Israel? Foreigners would be workers in the Land and coming in to engage in commerce, rather than occupiers of it.

Why were the neighboring nations, such as the Philistines a “thorn in the side” of Israel? Because, rather than wiping out and evicting all the evil nations God told them to remove, Israel pick up their abhorrent cultural practices and didn’t hold on the practices that God gave them.

Israel again would be called the priesthood of the LORD, ministers of God, not in a literal sense, after all, you can’t have more than one Cohen HaGadol on the Day of Atonment but every Israelite was to bring their gifts to the Temple and to bring people to the Temple of the Lord.

That’s reminiscent of King Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple in 1Samuel 8 that the Temple would be “house of prayer for all nations.”

It also looks toward the fulfillment of the “new covenant” prophecies of Jeremiah 31:31–34 and Ezekiel 36:25–26, at which time all nations would know the LORD. Why will people know the Lord? Because he forgives and forgets. Is that for all nations have come in just so they can get whipped and beaten and have to crawl through sharp gravel?

Or is it that you’ve been going a wayward way and the Creator of Heaven and Earth wants to cover over all your sins, your transgression, and iniquities. That means when He forgives, it is gone.

When God shows himself as holy, He shows how He is different from all the other deities different from how the world works?

In this world, if we were to lavish someone with lots of good things and they turn around and literally stomp on our gifts and trash them and then gossip about us and slander us, how would we treat them if they came to us hat in hand later asking for more blessings?

Would we stomp on their hats? Would we say to them, “How dare you?!” Would we make them feel like garbage and make them crawl back or turn them on a flaming spit? God is not like that.

When Moshe asked God to show him His glory, what did God show Moshe? A key to the “glory of the Lord” is His long-suffering and His forgiveness. He doesn’t leave the guilty unpunished but He doesn’t punish the wicked because He enjoys it.

He disciplines and punishes the wicket because that way of living is how one truly prospers in the land. Wickedness can work in the short-term but it is never a path of success in the long-term.

The good news is, that’s after this, after God is done calling then onto the carpet, Israel would get a “double portion” of the nations’ wealth/glory, and the nations would applaud that because they know the LORD.

That’s kind of the key thing of the New Covenant, New Covenant not only just a personal, individual transformation, but it is the nations being transformed, too.

So that’s why the blood of the new covenant is the starting point. The kingdom of heaven is at hand is a starting point. We see the culmination with the day of the Lord, where that stuff is finally brought to an end.

The Servant, aka the Messiah, brings the LORD’s vengeance.

“ ‘Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.’ ” (Deut. 32:35; cf. Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30).

Is it our job to enact vengeance? No. Not everything will be resolved in this life. We have to have faith that God will make sure it all works out.

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.” (Ps 126:5 NASB)

There’s more “happy mourning” in Ecclesiastes 7:1–6. Yes, the book of קֹהֶלֶת Qohelet (“preacher”) can be depressing, with its continual refrain that much of life is כבל chevel (“vanity,” “wisp,” Abel).

Yet, it’s a great open letter to a modern society that is so consumed with the ephemeral (15 seconds of fame, “likes,” “shares,” entertainment) it has no time for the eternal, the things that matter over the long term.

So very interesting, we just are looking for things that don’t really last and placing a whole lot of emphasis and time and stuff into things that just go nowhere.

The things that matter and last take work. The point of this passage is that wisdom comes through reflection: on what’s been lost and what should be lost (i.e., repented from) and never found again.

That’s where you kind of get this idea in Jewish culture that you’re better off to reflect upon the death of a person in remembrance of the time of death than the time of their birth. Don’t run away from mourning.

Because you know, we just have to reflect on the things that we lose. I know for me, I’ve often got distressed because I have lost family members. And for me, it was kind of scary, because I almost felt nothing until I started thinking about who it was I lost. I thought of all the times that had been with that person over such a long period of time, then I mourned.

So it’s kind of sad, but just have to lurch yourself out of this ephemeral world.

Great idea, when you start thinking about the time coming up for Yom Kippur. The things that we’ve lost, and the things that we really should lose.

In Jeremiah 16, the prophet Yermiyahu was instructed to not marry or have children as a message to Israel that they would be going into exile after many would die in the invasion.

Yermiyahu wasn’t to join in mourning as a sign that the LORD’s שלום shalom (peace), חסד chesed (loyalty) and רחמיםrachamim (compassion) were withdrawn from the Land.

Yermiyahu wasn’t to join in feasting as a sign that the LORD was going to שבת shavat (rest) “this place” — give it a time out.

The Apostle James in James 4:1-10 speaks about the importance of mourning. The tone is not much different from the book of Ecclesiastes.

A common perception is that God’s mercy is the LORD’s unmerited favor on humanity. God is not a sugar daddy but He’s not a meanie either. The testimony of the Torah, Prophets, Writings and Apostolic Writings is that grace often is conditional on humility that leads to repentance.

On the Day of the LORD, the mercy that’s been granted to those ignorant of God will be removed, because there will be a point in time when “all will know [the LORD], from the least to the greatest.”

The message from James and the prophets is that rather than pursuing mirth and pleasure than getting perplexed about why there’s a disconnect with God, we should pursue mourning and humility. We need to consider and learn what happened to our relationship with God and what needs to be shed on the way back to Him.

One of the things that the Spirit of the Lord is going to do to remind you of the things, bring those things back. But as we said, you had to have read them before. You had to read them before for them to come back.

“Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the [a]earth.” (Matthew 5:5 NKJV)

Yeshua’s mother, Miriam (Mary), upon hearing what the LORD would do through her, praised:

“ ‘He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; And sent away the rich empty-handed.’ ” (Luke 1:52–53)

She was quoting Psalm 107:

“Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness, And for His wonders to the sons of men! For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.” (Psa. 107:8–9)

So when we talk about what is the testimony of the Lord helps us see the things that are good versus the things that are not good. We should be looking to be mourning and reflecting on what we have lost, how we have been separated from God. We also need to look at what we need to discard.

However, we also can’t allow ourselves of falling into the trap of being far too harsh on ourselves. I suffer with this myself. The record plays in my head saying, “you’re a worm you’re worthless, you’re less than worthless.” I hear that screaming in my head all the time. “You are just awful, terrible person, you can’t do anything right.”

But if then you continue on with that recording, then you’re denying the New Covenant promise that He takes away your sins, transgressions, and your iniquities, and remember those things no more.

So if you really trust that He has done that, and He has truly given you a new heart, and He has truly made you a part of that special possession. And as the apostle Johan says there in his first letter, it says that, isn’t it great that we are called sons and daughters of God? And that is what we are.

Now that is predicated upon that we are actually mourning and weeping over our actual situation and looking at what Earth true situation actually is.

That’s what the time of Yom Kippur is all about. Do you only reflect on things once a year? No, it’s just an annual reminder, not only of what God is doing, what he has done, what he will do, but something that we should be taken into our lives on a regular basis all the time.

Remember, you have an Advocate, who speaks to the Father, on your behalf, Yeshua the Messiah. So that’s great news as well.

So we’re talking about the good news of the kingdom. This is a nice package of all kinds of things in there, that we can be called sons and daughters of God, that He calls us saints. We should not be calling ourselves something else.

He has truly has forgiven and put our past behind us, He really doesn’t recall that against us, then who are we to then drag that up?

Like with poverty, Matthew’s version reveals that true happiness is more than a full bank account and stomach.

King David, described as a man after God’s own heart, described longing for God as thirst:

“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.” (Psa. 42:1)

As we prepare for the spiritual discipline of hunger and thirst during Yom Kippur, “The Fast,” we could ask ourselves what we really need to be truly happy and what is getting between Heaven and us.

If we are truly hungry and thirsting for righteousness, where do we go down to the bookstore, try to find the latest guru with the hot bestseller? Or do we go through to the true source?

And that’s as we were saying earlier on and Deuteronomy. man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And that was something that Yeshua quoted to the HaSatan.

Yeshua’s mission was not to fulfill His will, but the will of the Father. So then we as students, the Maschiach, the people of God, do we go for our gratification at the moment or do we care about the long-term?

That’s when we were reflecting, thinking about mourning. We are mourning our condition, and mourning the condition of the world around us. That’s what Yom Kippur is about.

Summary: Tammy

Lexicons used for Hebrew and Greek translations include Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament and Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon.