“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” – Matthew 5:5 ESV
What is Meekness?
Jesus continues the beginning of His sermon with another heavy-hitting blessing: for the meek.
Meek is not a descriptor we use very regularly in our day and age, but if we do, we probably don’t intend for it to have a positive connotation. Maybe we use it to mean weak, feeble, spineless, or shy. So when we read “Blessed are the meek,” we’re once again left wondering, why is Jesus highlighting that quality? Let’s turn again to the original Greek to get the most accurate picture of the biblical author’s intention.
The Greek word for meek is praus. There isn’t one singular word in the English language that quite captures its meaning, but the closest we can get is the idea of strength under control.
Meekness in the Bible
There are two men in the Bible described as “meek.”
One of them is Moses. Numbers 12:3 says, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth” (ESV). Moses was in a position of incredible power. He was called by God to lead the Israelites out of exile and into the Promised Land. He knew Yahweh personally. It would’ve been easy for all that power and status to go to Moses’s head. Instead, he acknowledged how unequipped he was to do the work God called him to do apart from God. He exhibited strength that was completely dependent on and under the authority of God.
The other man is Jesus. Just a little while after He delivers the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29 KJV, emphasis added).
In John 5:19, Jesus talks about His relationship with God the Father, saying, “‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He does only what He sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does’” (NLT). Jesus was operating out of the power given to Him by God. There’s no better example of strength and power under control than that.
The New Earth
Looking around, we see an earth marred by sin, full of sickness and war and death. That doesn’t sound like much of an inheritance. So what does Jesus mean by this promise, “the meek will inherit the earth”?
The earth is the place of God’s Kingdom. When Jesus returns to make all things new, that includes the earth we’re living on right now. He’s going to make us new as well, giving us glorified bodies (see 1 Corinthians 53-55; Philippians 3:21). That earth, the holy city, the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21), is to be the inheritance of the meek.
