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Matthew 5:4
Being poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) is a facet of lowliness or humility. Mourning, the attitude of being contrite, a heartfelt feeling of remorse, sorrow, and unworthiness, is also a facet of lowliness or humility. It is a necessary and valuable mindset for Christians to have because it changes the way we approach things. This verse could be rendered, "Happy is the man who mourns, for he shall be comforted (or consoled)." The word for "mourn" in Greek is pentountes (Strong's #3996), from pentheo, and it means, "to lament, to be sad, to mourn." Interestingly, it may be translated more strongly as "bewail," which is a very strong form of mourning, a kind of shrieking or keening or some kind of passionate grief everyone can see. Whether it is just mourning or sadness or as extreme as bewailing, the attitude Jesus seeks is a deeply felt grief, a sorrow that goes all the way to the bone. It is not brief and passing, as one might have for an acquaintance who dies. A normal person might have a momentary, shallow grief for the person who has passed from the world, but it does not linger. The kind of grief Jesus speaks about sticks with a person, affecting him deeply. So, this mourning is not ephemeral, not momentary, but an abiding, continuing sadness, one that cannot be shaken because its causes are too present just to shrug off. This last detail is an important thing to understand—that the causes for this grief are still present. It is not something we can easily shift our focus from because it has passed, and we can shrug and move on to something else. No, the problem that instigated our sorrow still remains. So, we are continually grieved over the fact that the cause still exists, and it is taking such great efforts to overcome it.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Those Who Mourn
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