Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 5:12

"Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you." — Matthew 5:12 (ASV)

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad — The second word implies a glorious and exulting joy. The same combination is found, possibly as an actual echo of its use here, in 1 Peter 1:8, 1 Peter 4:13, and Revelation 19:7.

Your reward — The teaching of Luke 17:10 shows that even here the reward is not of debt, but of grace (Romans 4:4). It may be added that the disposition to which the “reward” is promised practically excludes the possibility of claiming it as a right. The reward is for those only who suffer “for righteousness, for Christ,” not for those who are calculating on a future compensation.

In heaven — Literally, in the heavens, as in the phrase, the “kingdom of heaven.” The plural is possibly used with reference to the Jewish belief in three (2 Corinthians 12:2) or seven heavens. More probably, it implies in its grand vagueness—like the many mansions of John 14:2—the absence of any spatial limits to the promised reward.

As with the “kingdom of heaven,” so here, the word is not to be projected into the far-off future. Instead, it points to the unseen, eternal world that is even now present to us, and of which all true disciples of Christ are citizens (Philippians 3:20).

So persecuted they the prophets — Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:21), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 11:21; Jeremiah 20:2), and the sufferers in the reign of Ahab (1 Kings 18:4) are the great historical instances. Isaiah may be added from tradition. But the words were, we can hardly doubt, true of the prophetic order as a whole. The witnesses for unwelcome truths have never had an easy task, anywhere or at any time.

In the words the prophets which were before you, there is a tacit assumption that the disciples to whom He spoke were also called to a prophetic work. There was to be, in part at least, a fulfillment of the old, grand wish: Would God that all the LORD’s people were prophets! (Numbers 11:29). The Church of Christ, endowed with the Pentecostal gift, was to be like a prophet to the nations.