These verses, the opening phrases of the Sermon on the Mount, hold some of the Bible’s most beautiful and best-loved poetry. Part of its beauty, though, lies in the fact that the meaning is not quite clear. What does it mean to be “poor in spirit”? What does it mean to “inherit the earth” or to be called “the children of God.” The fact that there are many possibilities causes us to linger over the phrases, pondering them.

Understood in the internal sense, these blessings show the spiritual states of the various people who could be receptive of the Lord and the new church he was launching. On a deeper level it shows that states within ourselves that can lead each of us to the Lord and to a deeper understanding of His truth today.

The “poor in spirit” are those who know little about spiritual things, but want to learn. Those that “mourn” are those who want to be good, but see no desire for good in their church. The “meek” are those who love to care for and serve others. To “hunger and thirst after righteousness” shows a desire to rise up, to learn about what’s good and to come to desire it.

The “merciful” are those who love their fellow people. The “pure in heart” are those who love only what is good. “Peacemakers” are those who are in harmony with the Lord, gaining knowledge from Him and wanting what He wants. And to be “persecuted for righteousness’ sake” means acting out of love and care for others, even though you are condemned by others for it.

There’s something of a progression there, from those who simply want to learn to those who actively want to be good people to those who actually are good and acting out of love for others. None of it, though, describes those who are learned in the Jewish traditions, or even necessarily observant in terms of ritual; they are, rather, those who sense that it is possible to be a good person and are willing to make the effort.

And they are promised their rewards! The “kingdom of heaven” is the understanding the angels have of the Lord; “comfort” represents ideas that lead to the good of life; “inheriting the earth” is a state of loving others and being loved by them in return. The overall message is simple: If we truly wish to be good people, and are willing to let the Lord teach us how to be good people, we will end up filled with love and wisdom from Him. And that’s what we need to focus on: The desire to be good, and openness to ideas from the Lord. It’s not about ritual and intellectual “correctness”; it’s about ideas that lead us to be good.

But what of being reviled and persecuted? This depicts temptation, when the hells attack our newborn good desires and true understanding. They cause us to doubt our ability to be truly good and question the ideas that are leading us. And they can do it in many ways, reminding us of the fun we’ll be missing or reminding us of all the bad things we’ve ever done to render us hopeless. They will even attack the Bible and the ideas that come to us through it from the Lord; that’s represented by the idea that people also attacked the prophets.

These states, however, are blessed in their own way; only by battling these evils, which are rooted inside us, can we finally fully embrace the good life we have been striving for. That’s why it is pictured last, and that's why it leads to the “great reward” in heaven.

5477. 'And they did not know that Joseph was hearing' means that the natural light in which those truths dwell does not engender any belief that spiritual light renders all things visible. This is clear from the representation of 'the sons of Jacob who did not know' as the truths which the external Church possesses, and so are present in the natural, often dealt with already - from which comes the meaning that the natural light in which those truths dwell does not engender any belief; and from the representation of 'Joseph' as the celestial of the spiritual, which dwells in spiritual light. But this spiritual light renders truths in the natural visible, and this is meant by 'Joseph was hearing'; for 'hearing' means both obeying and discerning, 5017. Thus spiritual light renders truths in the natural visible; but natural light cannot do the same for truths in the spiritual.

[2] The situation with natural light and spiritual light is as follows. Natural light flows from the sun in the world, and spiritual light flows from the Sun in heaven, which is the Lord. All the truths of faith that a person has learned since early childhood come to be understood by him with the help of the kinds of objects, and the ideas formed from these, that originate in the light of the world. Thus every single thing is seen in a natural way; for as long as he lives in the world all the ideas constituting a person's thought are based on the kinds of things that exist in the world. If therefore these things are taken away from him his thought is totally destroyed. One who has not been regenerated has no knowledge at all of the existence of spiritual light, not even of the existence in heaven of a light that has nothing in common with the light of the world. Still less does that person know that spiritual light is what lights up ideas and objects that originate in the light of the world and is what enables a person to think, draw conclusions, and reflect on them. The reason such spiritual light enables him to do this is that that light is wisdom itself which goes forth from the Lord; and that wisdom manifests itself as the light which the angels in heaven see before them. That light renders visible every single thing beneath it, that is, every single thing present with a person which is a product of natural light. But the reverse does not happen unless the person has been regenerated, in which case the things that belong to heaven, that is, forms of goodness and truth, are lit up by spiritual light and become visible in the natural as if in a representative mirror.

[3] From this it is evident that the Lord, who is Light itself, sees every single thing present in a person's thought and will, and present indeed in the whole natural creation; nothing at all escapes His notice. From all this one may now recognize what is involved here - that natural light in which those truths dwell does not engender any belief that spiritual light renders all things visible, meant by the words 'they did not know that Joseph was hearing'. Much the same is implied by the statement above in verse 8, 'Joseph recognized his brothers and they did not recognize him'. For these words mean that the truths of the Church were seen by the celestial of the spiritual by the light it possessed, and that truth from the Divine was not seen in natural light that was not yet brightened with heavenly light; see 5427, 5428.