Matthew 5:12

χαίρετε καὶ ἀγ. In spite of all, joy, exultation is possible nay, inevitable. I not only exhort you to it, but I tell you, you cannot help being in this mood, if once you throw yourselves enthusiastically into the warfare of God. Ἀγαλλιάω is a strong word of Hellenistic coinage, from ἄγαν and ἅλλομαι, to leap much, signifying irrepressible demonstrative gladness. This joy is inseparable from the heroic temper. It is the joy of the Alpine climber standing on the top of a snowclad mountain. But the Teacher gives two reasons to help inexperienced disciples to rise to that moral elevation. ὅτι ὁ μισθὸς … οὐρανοῖς. For evil treatment on earth there is a compensating reward in heaven. This hope, weak now, was strong in primitive Christianity, and greatly helped martyrs and confessors. οὔτως γὰρ γὰρ ἐ. τοὺς προφήτας. If we take the γὰρ as giving a reason for the previous statement the sense will be: you cannot doubt that the prophets who suffered likewise have received an eternal reward (so Bengel, Fritzsche, Schanz, Meyer, Weiss). But we may take it as giving a co-ordinate reason for joy = ye are in good company. There is inspiration in the “goodly fellowship of the prophets,” quite as much as in thought of their posthumous reward. It is to be noted that the prophets themselves did not get much comfort from such thoughts, and more generally that they did not rise to the joyous mood commended to His disciples by Jesus; but were desponding and querulous. On that side, therefore, there was no inspiration to be got from thinking of them. But they were thoroughly loyal to righteousness at all hazards, and reflection on their noble career was fitted to infect disciples with their spirit. τοὺς πρὸ ὑμῶν : words skilfully chosen to raise the spirit. Before you not only in time but in vocation and destiny. Your predecessors in function and suffering; take up the prophetic succession and along with it, cheerfully, its tribulations.