Matthew 5:3

Matthew 5:3 Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι,
ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.



Μακάριοι adj nominative plural. "blessed, happy" I decided to use the word blessed in my translation because I feel that this term often has a specialized usage in the New Testament(and in this context).. where God is the agent of blessing and the applicable human is the recipient of the blessing from the agent of blessing (God). Happy just seemed to weak of a word to use in this instance and could very very easily lead to a misunderstanding of what Jesus was saying. It is interesting to notice the parallel between Makapios and the use of Blessed in the Hebrew Old Testament (even in the Psalm I have been translating).
I'm going to classify this as a adjective used substantively. I'm going to put the being verb in my translation for fluidity in English.

here are some additional notes I saw on the word.
The special feature of the group μακάριος, μακαρίζειν, μακαρισμός in the NT is that it refers overwhelmingly to the distinctive religious joy which accrues to man from his share in the salvation of the kingdom of God. Thus the verb μακαρίζειν, which occurs only twice in the NT, is used in Lk. 1:48 of the blessing of the mother of the Messiah by all generations (Lk. 11:27), and in Jm. 5:11 of the righteous who endure (ὑπομείναντας). The noun μακαρισμός is found only 3 times, at Gl. 4:15 for the blessedness of receiving the message of salvation, and at R. 4:6, 9 with reference to the remission of sins. In both passages it is used almost technically by Paul. μακάριος is very common in the NT, and it is used almost always in direct beatitudes.40 As in the Gk. world and the OT the reference is to persons. Only occasionally is it to things, e.g., individual members of the body (Mt. 13:16: ὀφθαλμοί, ὦτα; Lk. 11:27: κοιλία, μαστοί).

Here is an interesting not on the paradoxical nature of the Blessings stated in Matthew. This parodixical nature is one of the features of the statements that really causes them to stand out and draw our attention to the statements being made.

Thus the NT beatitudes often contain sacred paradoxes (Mt. 5:3 ff.; Lk. 6:20–22; 1 Pt. 3:14; 4:14; Rev. 14:13). This is particularly true of the striking beatitudes which obviously formed the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in the very earliest tradition. In the impressive form of beatitudes basic statements are here made about those who may regard themselves as citizens of the kingdom of God. The power of the statements lies in their reversal of all human values. In Lk. the beatitudes consist more of eschatological consolation. Men in certain circumstances, the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, are promised the blessings of the kingdom of God. In Mt. the factor of their own moral and religious conduct is more prominent, and the connection between right conduct and heavenly recompense is emphasised.

. Vol. 4: Theological dictionary of the New Testament. 1964- (G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (368). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.



οἱ πτωχοὶ nominative plural (nominative predicate) 1. poor, beggarly, destitute

2. of little value, relatively worthless


τῷ πνεύματι noun dative singular "in the spirit"





here is an important not on the Greek idiom that is present in the text here

88.57 πτωχὸς τῷ πνεύματι: (an idiom, literally ‘poor in spirit’) pertaining to one who is humble with regard to his own capacities (in the one NT occurrence, namely, Mt 5:3, this humility is in relationship to God)—‘to be humble.’ μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι ‘happy are those who are humble before God’ Mt 5:3. A literal translation of πτωχὸς τῷ πνεύματι may lead to serious misunderstanding, since ‘poor in spirit’ is likely to mean either ‘lacking in the Holy Spirit’ or ‘lacking in ambition or drive.’ In order to indicate clearly that this poverty or need is related in some way to spiritual realities, one may translate ‘happy are those who recognize their need of God.’

Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (748). New York: United Bible Societies.


The fact that this is a Greek idiom makes this a difficult potion to translate. I'm not sure if i like just translating it "poor in spirit", because this is pretty hard to understand and again easy to misinterpret. I think I am going to go with "spiritually destitute" I think this translation preserves the meaning of the Greek idiom and also fits well with the contrast between poverty (spiritually) now and the Kingdom that these poor will inherit. I like the word destitute because it seems to emphasize the needy the man is without the false negative connotations that other words might be misunderstood to be saying.

So here is my translation of the first half of the verse
wooden - blessed ones (are) the poor in the spirit.
my final translation- "Blessed are the spiritually destitute"

ὅτι - conjunction "for"

αὐτῶν- personal pronoun 3rd person plural genitive masculine "of them" I'm thinking this is the predicate use of the genitive case

ἐστιν - present active indicative third person singular from the being verb εἰμί

ἡ βασιλεία noun nominative singular femin. "the kingdom" (nominative predicate)

τῶν οὐρανῶν noun genitive plural masculine "of the heavens" (Subjective Genitive)

wooden translation- 'blessed ones (are) the poor in spirit, for of them is the kingdom of the heavens."

Final translation "Blessed are the spiritually destitute, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"

I really didn't like just leaving it "theirs is the kingdom..., but I didn't want to add any extra words to try to make it sound smother and make the verse potentially say more than it does in the Greek"