Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 5:4

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." — Matthew 5:4 (ASV)

Those who mourn — The verb is commonly coupled with weeping (Mark 16:10; Luke 6:25; James 4:9; Revelation 18:15–19). Here, as before, there is an implied, though not an expressed, limitation. The mourning is not the sorrow of the world that worketh death (2 Corinthians 7:10) for failure, suffering, and the consequences of sin, but the sorrow that flows out in tears that cleanse—the mourning over sin itself and the stain it has left upon the soul.

They will be comforted — The pronoun is emphatic. The promise implies the special comfort (including counsel) that the mourner needs; he will be “comforted” with the sense of pardon and peace, of restored purity and freedom. We cannot separate the promise from the word that Christendom has chosen (we need not now discuss its accuracy) to express the work of the Holy Spirit the Comforter, still less from the yearning expectation that then prevailed among those of our Lord’s hearers who were looking for the “consolation”—that is, the comfort—of Israel (Luke 2:25).