Blessed are the poor

In a 1927 article in JBL , one C. C. McCown examines the Beatitudes in the light of ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hebrew ideals of kingship. There is a consensus that a just king will bring benefits to the poor. The rich benefit in any case, especially with a corrupt king. But it takes a just king to treat the poor with justice and mercy. That’s the kind of King Jesus is, and the kind of kingdom he rules.

“A distinct tradition of divine justice and protection of the poor and weak is traceable through three thousand years of history. Are we supposed to believe that Jesus suddenly steps aside from it, that he restricts the hope of the poor to even narrower limits than the Jewish apocalypticists had done, that he is less sensitive to social wrong and economic injustice than the patesis of Sumer or the social prophets of Egypt or the rabbis of the Talmud?”