Rejoice, and be exceeding glad. — The second word implies a glorious and exulting joy. The same combination is found, possibly as an actual echo of its use here, in 1 Peter 1:8; 1 Peter 4:13; Revelation 19:7.
Your reward. — The teaching of Luke 17:10 shows that even here the reward is not “of debt, but of grace” (Romans 4:4). It may be added that the temper to which the “reward” is promised practically excludes the possibility of such claim as of right. The reward is for those only who suffer “for righteousness, for Christ,” not for those who are calculating on a future compensation.
In heaven. — Literally, in the heavens, as in the phrase, the “kingdom of heaven.” the plural being used possibly with reference to the Jewish belief in three (2 Corinthians 12:2) or seven heavens, more probably as implying, in its grand vagueness (like the “many mansions” of John 14:2), the absence of any space limits to the promised reward. As with the “kingdom of heaven,” so here, the word is not to be thrown forward into the far-off future, but points to the unseen eternal world which is even now present to us, and of which all true disciples of Christ are citizens (Philippians 3:20).
So persecuted they the prophets. — Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:21), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 11:21; Jeremiah 20:2), and the sufferers in the reign of Ahab (1 Kings 18:4), are the great historical instances. Isaiah may be added from tradition. But the words were, we can hardly doubt, true of the prophetic order as a whole. The witnesses for unwelcome truths have never had, anywhere or at any time, a light or easy task. In the words “the prophets which were before you” there is a tacit assumption that the disciples also to whom He spake were called to a prophetic work. There was to be, in part at least, a fulfilment of the old grand wish, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” (Numbers 11:29). The Church of Christ, endowed with the Pentecostal gift, was to be as a prophet to the nations.