Matthew 5:12

12 Joy ye, and be ye glad [full out], for your meed is plenteous in heavens; for so they have pursued the prophets also that 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 Blessed be they that suffer persecution for rightwiseness, for the kingdom of heavens is theirs [for the kingdom of heaven is theirs].

11 Blessed be ye, when men shall curse you, and shall pursue you [and pursue you], and shall say all evil against you lying, for me.

12 Joy ye, and be ye glad [full out], for your meed is plenteous in heavens; for so they have pursued the prophets also that were before you.

13 Ye be salt of the earth; that if the salt [shall] vanish away, wherein shall it be salted? To nothing it is worth over, but that it be cast out, and be defouled of men.

14 Ye be [the] light of the world; a city set on an hill may not be hid;