Matthew5chapter 5

the salt of the earth: Salt in the ancient world preserved and seasoned, and the covenant of salt in Leviticus 2:13 and Numbers 18:19 already carried the sense of a bond kept faithful. Salt drawn from the Dead Sea shore could carry enough other minerals that the sodium chloride leached out first, leaving a residue that looked like salt and had lost its use, the natural background behind losing one's savour. The warning is of a disciple who keeps the name without the substance, fit for nothing but the roadway underfoot.

the light of the world: Light of the world is a title Jesus applies to himself at John 8:12, and here he gives it to his disciples as those who carry his light into a dark world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid, and Galilee's hillside towns, lit at night, were visible for miles, a picture ready to hand for a hearer on that mountain. The purpose clause matters as much as the image, that men may see good works and glorify the Father, the opposite aim from the hypocrites of 6:1-18 who perform to be seen of men themselves.

I am not come to destroy: Fulfil, not destroy, states the relationship between Jesus and the law and the prophets that the rest of the Sermon works out in the antitheses to come. Jot names the smallest Hebrew letter, yod, and tittle a small stroke distinguishing similar letters, so the claim covers the law down to its smallest marks, till all be fulfilled. The commentators read fulfilment across three registers, prophetic, typological, and moral, without settling how far the ceremonial law's binding force continues for a church age it does not itself address.

these least commandments: Even the least commandments carry weight in the kingdom, and rank there is measured by faithfulness to them rather than by which laws a teacher judges minor. The verse answers in advance any reading of verse 17 that would let a disciple set aside part of the law as beneath notice. Doing and teaching are named together, so the standard is practice first and instruction built on it, not instruction alone.

righteousness shall exceed: The righteousness thread's third beat sets an entrance requirement no scribe or Pharisee's outward law-keeping could meet, since their righteousness was measured in visible acts, tithing mint and cummin, while missing the heart the antitheses go on to expose. The commentators read the demand two ways, as a righteousness Christ supplies to the believer and a righteousness his Spirit then produces in the life, the two held together rather than argued apart. Either way the verse forces the hearer past comparison with other people and toward an inward standard only God can see.

Thou shalt not kill: The first of six antitheses takes the sixth commandment to its root, locating murder's seed in contempt rather than only in the act, a reading the rest of the New Testament confirms at 1 John 3:15. Raca is an Aramaic term of contempt, something close to empty-head, and thou fool carries a similar scorn, the word Moses himself used rashly of Israel at Numbers 20:10. The rising penalties, judgment, the council, and hell fire, are not a legal ladder to be read literally but an escalation in seriousness, anger's inward stages each answerable to God.

bring thy gift to the altar: The scene assumes a worshipper already at the temple, gift in hand, who remembers a brother's grievance against him, and Jesus ranks reconciliation above the offering itself, leave there thy gift. The command reaches back before the gift is given, first be reconciled, so worship offered over an unresolved wrong is set aside until the wrong is addressed. The same priority against empty ritual returns in chapter 6's teaching on alms, prayer, and fasting done for God rather than for show.

Agree with thine adversary quickly: The picture is a debtor being marched to the judge, urgency the whole point, since a debt unsettled becomes a sentence enforced to the uttermost farthing, the kodrantes, the smallest Roman coin in circulation. Read plainly it is wisdom about settling disputes before they harden into a legal case beyond either party's control. Many commentators also hear an echo of final judgment underneath the practical advice, the adversary standing for an accusation better settled while there is still time.

not commit adultery: The second antithesis moves the seventh commandment inward exactly as the first moved the sixth, locating adultery's beginning in a look that lusts rather than only in the act completed. Committed already in his heart makes plain that Jesus is not adding a new law beside the old one but exposing what the old commandment always meant at its root. The verse addresses the man looking, not the woman looked at, and the church has often had to be reminded which party this verse actually corrects.

right eye offend thee: The eye and hand are named as the most valuable of the body's members, and the command to pluck out and cut off is read across the church's history as hyperbole demanding radical seriousness with sin's occasions, not a call to literal mutilation, a reading Origen's own later self-castration became a byword for misapplying. Hell translates gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, once a site of child sacrifice in 2 Kings 23:10 and by Jesus' day the city's burning refuse ground, a picture of waste and shame rather than a technical term for judgment alone. The point stands whichever reading is taken further, that no cost is too high to cut off what leads the whole body into ruin.

put away his wife: Jesus tightens Moses' allowance in Deuteronomy 24:1 rather than cancelling it, permitting divorce only for fornication, porneia, and naming remarriage after any other divorce as adultery. The verse sits inside a live first-century dispute between the rabbinic schools of Hillel, who allowed divorce for almost any cause including a badly cooked meal, and Shammai, who confined it to serious sexual sin, a debate the disciples raise directly at 19:3. The exposition names both readings honestly rather than settling how widely the exception clause extends, since the church has long divided over the question.

Thou shalt not forswear thyself: The fourth antithesis answers a system of casuistic oaths that ranked swearing by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or one's own head as lesser than swearing by God's name directly, when in fact each touches God regardless, his throne, his footstool, his city, his creation. Jesus calls instead for plain truthful speech, yea, yea, nay, nay, so consistent that no oath is needed to back it. The commentators divide over whether this forbids all oaths whatsoever, a reading some later traditions have held in full, or targets the evasive oath-culture of the day, noting that Jesus himself answers under oath at 26:63-64 and Paul swears by God as his witness in his own letters.

An eye for an eye: The lex talionis of Exodus 21:24 was given as a judicial limit, capping revenge at the injury actually suffered rather than licensing escalation, and the fifth antithesis addresses personal retaliation, not the courts that still enforced it. Turn the other cheek names a slap of insult more than a mortal attack, and the command reorders how a disciple answers a personal wrong rather than instructing magistrates, whose duty Paul still describes in Romans 13:4. The commentators keep the personal ethic and the civil order distinct, so this verse governs a disciple's own response and does not by itself settle courts or self-defense as questions belonging elsewhere.

sue thee at the law: Coat and cloke name the inner tunic and the outer garment a poor man slept in, which Exodus 22:26-27 forbade a creditor to keep overnight, so Jesus pictures a disciple giving even what the law protected. Compel thee to go a mile answers the Roman practice of angareia, the legal right of a soldier to press a civilian into carrying a load one mile, the same power Simon of Cyrene meets at 27:32. Give and lend close the sequence, generosity extended past the letter of any claim a person could rightly make.

hate thine enemy: Love thy neighbour is Leviticus 19:18's own command, but hate thine enemy is nowhere written in the law, a rabbinic inference some drew from that verse's limit to neighbour rather than a text Jesus is correcting directly. The sixth antithesis commands the opposite, love toward enemies and prayer for persecutors, grounded not in their deserving but in the Father's own pattern, sun and rain given to evil and good alike. Sonship is again the reward named, the family likeness proved by loving as the Father loves rather than by loving only those who love back.

the publicans: Tax collectors and Gentiles already love those who love them, and Jesus asks what reward is left in matching a standard pagans keep without any law at all. Be ye therefore perfect closes the whole antitheses section, and teleios names completeness and maturity rather than sinless perfection, the same word Paul uses of a mature believer in Philippians 3:15. The verse sets the aim of the whole chapter, a wholehearted love that resembles the Father's own character rather than a righteousness measured against other people.