Blessed are ye when men shall hate you
For the sake of Christ, and his Gospel:
and when they shall separate you from their company;
either from civil conversation with them, as if they were Gentiles and uncircumcised persons; or from their religious assemblies, and so may have respect to that sort of excommunication in use, among the Jews, called (ywdn) or "separation": by which persons were not only excluded from the congregation, but from all civil society and commerce: such a person might not sit nearer to another than four cubits, and this continued for thirty days; and if not discharged then, he continued thirty more F20:
and shall reproach you:
as heretics, apostates, and enemies to the law of Moses, as the Jews did reproach the Christians;
and cast out your name as evil;
or "as of evil men": as the Syriac and Arabic versions render it: this may have respect to the greater sorts of excommunication, used among them, called "Shammatha" and "Cherem", by which a person was accursed, and devoted to destruction; so that our Lord's meaning is, that the should be esteemed and treated as the worst of men, and stigmatized in the vilest manner they were capable of:
for the son of man's sake;
not for any immorality committed by them, but only for professing and, preaching that the Messiah was come in the flesh, and that Jesus of Nazareth was he; and that he who was the son of man, according to his human nature, was, the Son of God according to his divine nature.