Matthew 5:12

12 rejoice ye and be glad, because your reward [is] great in the heavens, for thus did they persecute the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:12 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 5:12

Rejoice and be exceeding glad
Because of the honour put upon them, the glory they bring to Christ and his cause, by cheerfully suffering for it; and because of the glory and happiness that shall follow upon their sufferings:

for great is your reward in heaven;
not of debt, but of grace; for there is no proportion or comparison between what the saints suffer for Christ, and the glory that shall be revealed in them by him; not in earth, but in heaven. Saints must not expect their reward here, but hereafter, when God himself will be their reward; he will be all in all; Christ and all his glory, glory and all the riches of it will be the reward of the inheritance, and which must needs be a "great" one. And the more to animate them to suffer with joyfulness, and to support them under all their reproaches and persecutions, it is added;

for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you;
as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and others; which shows, that what should befall them was no new and strange thing, but what had been the lot of the most eminent servants of God in former ages.

Matthew 5:12 In-Context

10 `Happy those persecuted for righteousness' sake -- because theirs is the reign of the heavens.

11 `Happy are ye whenever they may reproach you, and may persecute, and may say any evil thing against you falsely for my sake --

12 rejoice ye and be glad, because your reward [is] great in the heavens, for thus did they persecute the prophets who were before you.

13 `Ye are the salt of the land, but if the salt may lose savour, in what shall it be salted? for nothing is it good henceforth, except to be cast without, and to be trodden down by men.

14 `Ye are the light of the world, a city set upon a mount is not able to be hid;