Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

 One of the best-known passages in the Bible.

But what does it mean?

Saying that the meek shall inherit the earth raises the immediate question: just when will they do that?

Most people would understand that to mean at some indeterminate time in the future, maybe after the end of the world when God creates a new heaven and earth.  Some would say: in the millennium, a thousand-year period of peace on earth that many Bible teachers say is to come.

Or it can mean something else.

As most of you know, maybe, the New Testament was originally written in Greek and the Old Testament in Hebrew.  The Bible the early church used primarily was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.

And that phrase ‘inherit the earth’ is a very common one in the Old Testament.  It occurs over 40 times, and it never refers to some future event after life on here is all over.

The word ‘earth’ and the word ‘land’ are the same words in both Hebrew and Greek.  And the word for ‘inherit’ also means ‘to possess.’  The nation Israel was often spoken of as inheriting the Land of Promise, or possessing the land.  They inherit it in the sense that it was given to them.  The land belonged to God, and He gave it to Israel.

The verse is actually a quote from Psalm 37:11, which says that “the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”  The word humble here is the same word as the word meek in Matthew.

Here the meek possess, or inherit land (the word ‘the’ is not in the Hebrew text.) AND delight themselves in abundant Shalom, which can be translated as peace, wholeness, completeness, or as someone put it, the way things are supposed to be.

When Jesus said that the meek shall possess the land, his listeners would have immediately thought of this verse in the Psalms.  And they would have remembered the second part of the verse, about delighting themselves in abundant prosperity.  The phrase ‘delighting themselves’ is used in Isaiah 66:11 in a sexual context, speaking of the intensity of the experience.  You can read that one yourself. 

But simply put, the meek are the ones who come to know the fullness of life and experience. 

In the Beatitudes, from which our original verse comes, there is an expression which doesn’t come out in most English translations.  The ‘they’ is emphasized, so it’s like: Blessed are the meek, for THEY are the ones who will possess the land.

THEY are the ones who will experience all that God has planned for His people. 

We have to ask then: what does it mean to be meek?

Whatever it does mean, in this context it is not to be understood apart from the other 8 beatitudes.  That means the meek person in verse 5 will also be poor in spirit, hunger and thirst for righteousness, be merciful, pure in heart, and a peacemaker.  Jesus isn’t talking about 8 different kinds of people, but the same people looked at in slightly different ways. 

A meek person is contrasted with a person who is pursuing the abundant prosperity as his goal in life, and the meek is focused on other things, and HE is the one who comes to possess it.  The primary Greek lexicon in use today defines it as a person who is “not overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance.”  Somebody has said, maybe it was me, that humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but not thinking of yourself at all.

Another person, far more scholarly and famous then me, has said that it is that temper of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting.

You could just as well put the other qualities in the beatitudes all together and end up with meekness.

Oh, and one more thing.  Most translations probably call this person blessed, or bles-sed, while most more modern translations call that person happy.  This person is happy, because their life is fitting in with the grand scheme of things.  They are in the center of God’s will, and they know that there is no other place they would rather be.