BEATITUDES*, The

Term derived from Latin beatitudo; it is not used in the English Bible. Technically it means “blessedness” as described in the OT and NT. “Blessed” is translated from both Hebrew and Greek words to refer to divine favor conveyed to people.

The formal utterance “happy is,” or “blessed is,” is a common declaration in the book of Psalms (used 26 times) and Proverbs (8 times). It is used 10 times in the other books of the OT and 13 times in the apocryphal books. These beatitudes are pronounced upon the person who is righteous, having faith and hope in God. They are signs of a life lived in proximity to Yahweh, in the experience of forgiveness, and in the love and favor of God. Such life is a totality, so such blessings are expressive of holistic enrichment, harmony, and fecundity, whether in family life, in temple worship, in public life, or in the interior of one’s own being. The person so blessed is in touch with the fruitfulness of the Creator himself. Such a one lives a fulfilled life, life as God intended it to be lived before him.

In the NT, references to “blessing” occur seven times in the book of Revelation, three times in the Epistle to the Romans, and once in John’s Gospel. The prominence of “blessedness” in Matthew and Luke gives rise to the technical term “Beatitudes.” There are interesting contrasts between Luke’s “sermon on the plain” (Lk 6:20-23) and Matthew’s “sermon on the mount” (Mt 5:3-12). The pronouncement of the blessings in Luke is done immediately after the selection of the 12 disciples (Lk 6:12-16). Yet the sermon is addressed to the crowd generally and speaks of the advent of God’s kingdom as the reversal of the social conditions of the human race. So Luke balances four blessings with four woes—changing from the present tense to the future tense—to heighten the contrast of the impending reversal of social conditions.

In Matthew’s account, the advent of the kingdom has already commenced, indicated by the use of the present tense. It is addressed to the disciples particularly and is not a general proclamation. The sermon is set within two statements of Jesus: he has not come to destroy but to fulfill the Mosaic law (Mt 5:17); and it is necessary to have a kind of righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 5:20). So these Beatitudes are more concerned with the interior life of the disciple, to activate here and now the kind of life Jesus communicates in those who follow him, for Jesus has already inaugurated the kingdom. These eight Beatitudes reflect on the traits of those who belong to that kingdom and who therefore reflect Christ’s own life. The people and situations described may seem pitiable by human standards, but because of God’s presence in their lives, they are actually blessed and should be congratulated and imitated. See Jesus Christ, Life and Teachings of.