Matthew 5:5

οἱ πραεῖς : in Sept [18] for עֲנָוִים in Psalms 37:11, of which this Beatitude is an echo. The men who suffer wrong without bitterness or desire for revenge, a class who in this world are apt to go to the wall. In this case we should have expected the Teacher to end with the common refrain: theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that being the only thing they are likely to get. Jean Paul Richter humorously said: “The French have the empire of the land, the English the empire of the sea; to the Germans belongs the empire of the air ”. But Jesus promises to the meek the empire of the solid earth κληρονομήσουσι τὴν γῆν. Surely a startling paradox! That the meek should find a foremost place in the kingdom of heaven is very intelligible, but “inherit the earth” the land of Canaan or any other part of this planet is it not a delusive promise? Not altogether. It is at least true as a doctrine of moral tendency. Meekness after all is a power even in this world, a “world-conquering principle” (Tholuck). The meek of England, driven from their native land by religious intolerance, have inherited the continent of America. Weiss (Meyer) is quite sure, however, that this thought was far (ganz fern) from Christ's mind. I venture to think he is mistaken.

[18] Septuagint.

The inverse order of the second and third Beatitudes found in Codex [19], and favoured by some of the Fathers, e.g., Jerome, might be plausibly justified by the affinity between poverty of spirit and meekness, and the natural sequence of the two promises: possession of the kingdom of heaven and inheritance of the earth. But the connection beneath the surface is in favour of the order as it stands in T. R.

[19] Codex Bezae