What Does Matthew 5:7 Mean?
Flourishing are the givers of faithful love, for they are shown faithful love.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.THE KEY
The same Greek word-family names both the mercy you extend and the mercy you receive.
THE MEANING
Flourishing belongs to the one who meets another’s need with mercy, and the promise is that mercy will meet them in return. The same word-family binds both halves: the person is merciful, and mercy is shown to them.
THE ROOT
ἐλεήμονες
eleēmones
GROWS FROM
ἔλεος
eleos
Mercy or compassion directed toward another’s need.
“givers of faithful love” in this verse is eleēmones. The verse repeats this word-family in both halves: the merciful are met with mercy. English makes the promise sound like two separate ideas, while Greek ties the mercy offered to another to the mercy received.
ALSO GROWS
eleeō: To act with mercy or compassion.
ἐλεέω
It shares the same word-family and shows mercy as something done, not only felt.
eleēmosynē: Mercy expressed through giving to someone in need.
ἐλεημοσύνη
It carries the word-family into concrete care, showing how mercy moves outward.
THE PATTERN
Mercy takes priority over religious performance and shapes how people meet one another.
For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.Become therefore compassionate, as your Father is compassionate.For judgment will be without faithful love for the one who did not show such love, and faithful love boasts over judgment.THE THREAD
For judgment will be without faithful love for the one who did not show such love, and faithful love boasts over judgment.James repeats the same Greek word for mercy, while Matthew uses that word-family for both the one who shows mercy and the one who receives it. Together they reveal mercy as a movement between people that changes how judgment meets them.
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