the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Blessedness
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or BLESSEDNESS . The substantive does not occur either in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] or RV [Note: Revised Version.] of the OT, and has rightly been expunged from the RV [Note: Revised Version.] of Romans 4:6; Romans 4:9 , Galatians 4:15 , where alone it had place in the AV [Note: Authorized Version.] of the NT. ‘Blessed’ and ‘happy’ are found in both Testaments as a varying translation of the same Heb. or Gr. word; ‘blessed’ greatly pre-ponderating. The Biblical blessedness represents a conception of happiness in which the religious relation is taken into account, with its emotions and its issues. In the OT these issues sometimes lie rather in material prosperity life, long life, wealth, children, outward peace but it is recognized that the conditions of these are spiritual ( Psalms 1:1-6 ), and in not a few instances the inward and spiritual is itself represented as the content of true happiness ( e.g . Psalms 32:1-11 [but see Psalms 32:10 ], Proverbs 4:7 [but see Proverbs 3:2; Proverbs 3:10 ]).
In the NT the stress is decisively shifted to the spiritual content of blessedness, which may consist with the most adverse earthly conditions ( Matthew 5:10-11 , Luke 6:22 , James 1:12 ). The thought of compensation in future reward is not absent, even from the ‘Beatitudes’ (esp. in their Lukan form, Luke 6:20-26 ); but the reward is clearly only the consummation of a blessedness already attained by the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, etc. In the teaching of Jesus the summum bonum appears now as place in the Kingdom of God, now as eternal life ( e.g. Matthew 25:34 , Mark 10:17; Mark 10:23 , John 3:3-5; John 4:14 ), and both are described as a present possession ( Luke 17:20-21 , John 3:36 ).
Finally, in the Johannine writings the religious relation, already in the OT an essential condition of blessedness ( e.g. Psalms 2:12; Psalms 33:12 ), is made supreme and in itself all-sufficing. Eternal life is personal union with Christ, revealer of the Father, by trust and fellowship ( e.g. John 5:24; John 6:54; John 17:3 , 1 John 5:11-20 ). For so man becomes partaker of the life of Him who is Himself the ‘blessed God’ ( 1 Timothy 1:11; 1 Timothy 6:15 ).
S. W. Green.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Blessedness'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/b/blessedness.html. 1909.
