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.

9262. 'And do not kill the innocent and the righteous' means detesting the destruction of good, interior and exterior. This is clear from the meaning of 'the innocent' as a person governed by interior good, and so in the abstract sense as interior good, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'the righteous' as a person governed by exterior good, and in the abstract sense as exterior good, since 'righteous' has reference to the good of love towards the neighbour, but 'innocent' to the good of love to the Lord - the good of love towards the neighbour being exterior good, and the good of love to the Lord being interior good; and from the meaning of 'killing' as destroying. The fact that 'righteous' means the good of love towards the neighbour will also be seen below. But the reason why 'the innocent' means the good of love to the Lord is that people endowed with innocence are those who love the Lord; for innocence consists in the acknowledgement in a person's heart that left to himself he intends nothing but evil and perceives nothing but falsity, and that all good of love and all truth of faith come from the Lord alone. No others can acknowledge these things in their heart except those who have been joined to the Lord in love. Such people inhabit the inmost heaven, which is accordingly called the heaven of innocence. Therefore the good that is theirs is interior good; for the Divine Good of Love coming from the Lord is that which inhabitants of the heaven of innocence receive. Therefore also they appear naked and also look like young children. So it is that innocence is represented by nakedness and also by early childhood. For its representation by nakedness, see 165, 213, 214, 8375; and by early childhood, 430, 1616, 2280, 2305, 2306, 3183, 3494, 4563, 4797, 5608 (end).

[2] From all that has just been stated regarding innocence it may be seen that what is Divine and the Lord's cannot be received except within innocence. This being so, good is not good unless there is innocence within it, 2526, 2780, 3994, 6765, 7840, 7887, that is, unless there is the acknowledgement that from the self nothing but evil and falsity arises and that from the Lord comes all goodness and truth. Believing the former about the self, and believing the latter about the Lord and also desiring it to be so, are what constitutes innocence. Therefore the good of innocence is God's goodness itself coming from the Lord and residing with a person. So it is that 'the innocent' means a person governed by interior good and in the abstract sense means interior good.

[3] Because 'the innocent' or 'innocence' means Divine Good coming from the Lord, shedding innocent blood was a thoroughly atrocious crime. And when it had been committed the whole land was under damnation until the crime had been expiated, as becomes clear from the process of investigation and absolution from guilt if someone had been found slain in the land. That process is spoken of in Moses as follows,

When one is found slain in the land, lying in the field, and it is not known who smote him, then your elders and your judges shall come out and they shall measure [the distance] to the cities which are around the one slain. It shall be however, that in the city nearest to the one slain the elders of this city shall take an ox's heifer by means of which no work has been done, which has not pulled in the yoke; and the elders of this city shall bring the heifer down to a barren valley which is neither tilled nor sown, and there they shall break the heifer's neck in the valley. Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, and all the elders of this city standing by the one slain. They shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck has been broken in the valley; and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it; expiate Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Jehovah, and do not set innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel. In this way the blood will be expiated for them. But you shall put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, if you do what is right in the eyes of Jehovah. Deuteronomy 21:1-10.

Anyone can see that this process of investigation and absolution from guilt when innocent blood had been shed in the land holds within it the arcana of heaven, of which people cannot have any knowledge at all unless they know what is meant by 'one slain, [lying] in the field', by 'an ox's heifer by means of which no work has been done, and which has not pulled in the yoke', by 'a barren valley which is neither tilled nor sown', by 'breaking the neck of the heifer in the valley', by 'washing hands over the heifer', and by all the other details of the process. Unless everything laid down had meant those arcana it would have been totally unsuitable for the Word that has been dictated by God and inspired in every word and part of a letter. For without its deeper meaning such a process would have been an observance which had nothing holy about it, indeed which had scarcely any value.

[4] But exactly which arcana lie within it is nevertheless evident from the internal sense, that is, if it is known that 'one slain in the land, lying in the field' means truth and good wiped out in the Church where good exists; that 'the city nearest to the one slain' means the truth taught by the Church whose good has been wiped out; that 'an ox's heifer by means of which no work has been done, and which has not pulled in the yoke' means the good of the external or natural man, who has not as yet, through enslavement to evil desires, drawn falsities into his faith and evils into his life; that 'a barren valley which is neither tilled nor sown' means the natural mind that is not cultivated with truths or forms of the good of faith owing to lack of knowledge; that 'breaking its neck in the valley' means purification, on account of absence of blame because it was due to lack of knowledge; and that 'washing the hand' means being absolved from that atrocious crime. Once these things are known it is evident that 'shedding innocent blood' means wiping out Divine Truth and Good that come from the Lord, thus the Lord Himself as He exists with a member of the Church.

[5] It should be recognized that this entire process represented in heaven the kind of crime that had no blame attached to the commission of it because it was due to ignorance that had innocence within it and was therefore as something not evil. Each detail within that process, even the smallest, represented some essential aspect of the reality portrayed by the whole. But which aspect each one represented is clear from the internal sense.

'One who has been slain' is truth and good that have been wiped out, see 4503.

'The land' is the Church, 662, 1066, 1067, 1262, 1413, 1607, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 2928, 3355, 4447, 4535, 5577, 8011, 8732.

'The field' is the Church in respect of good, thus the Church's good, 2971, 3310, 3766, 4982, 7502, 7571, 9139.

'The city' is teachings presenting the truth, thus the truth taught by the Church, 402, 2268, 2449, 2712, 2943, 3216, 4492, 4493.

'Ox' is the good of the external or natural man, 2180, 2566, 2781, 9134, so that 'a heifer' is good in its infancy, 1824, 1825.

[6] 'No work had been done by it, and it had not pulled in the yoke', it is evident, means that up to then it had not, owing to lack of knowledge, served falsities and evils; for 'working' and 'pulling in the yoke' mean serving.

'A valley' is the lower mind, which is called the natural mind, 3417, 4715; 'a barren valley' is that mind when devoid of truths and forms of good, 3908; so that 'a valley which is neither tilled nor sown' is the natural mind not yet cultivated with truths and forms of good, thus which is still lacking in knowledge, 'the seed with which it is sown' being the truth of faith, 1025, 1447, 1610, 1940, 2848, 3038, 3373, 3671, 6158.

'Breaking the neck' is expiation, because the slaughter of various beasts, like the offering of sacrifice, meant expiation.

'Washing the hand' means purification from falsities and evils, 3147; here therefore it means purification from that atrocious crime; for 'shedding blood' in general means violence done to goodness and truth, 9127, so that 'shedding innocent blood' means wiping out what is Divine residing with a person and comes from the Lord, thus the Lord Himself residing with that person; for truth and good residing with a person are the Lord Himself since they come from Him.

[7] The like is meant by 'shedding innocent blood' in Deuteronomy 19:10; 27:25; Isaiah 59:3, 7; Jeremiah 2:34; 7:6; 19:4; 22:3, 17; Joel 3:19; Psalms 94:21. 'One who is innocent' means in the proximate sense someone who is blameless and also free from evil, to which people also bore witness in former times by washing their hands, Psalms 26:6; 73:13; Matthew 27:24; John 18:38; 19:4. The reason for this is that good which comes from the Lord and resides with a person is blameless and free from evil; this good is the good of innocence in the internal sense, as has been shown. But good that is blameless and free from evil as it exists in the external man, which is exterior good, is called 'righteous', as also in David,

The throne of perdition will not be linked to You - those who gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous and condemn innocent blood. Psalms 94:20-21.