The light of the world. — In its highest or truest sense the word belongs to Christ, and to Him only (John 1:9; John 8:12). The comparison to the “candle” or “lamp” in Matthew 5:15 shows, indeed, that even here the disciples are spoken of as shining in the world with a derived brightness flowing to them from the Fount of light.
A city that is set on an hill. — Assuming the Sermon on the Mount to have been preached from one of the hills of Galilee near the “horns of Hattin,” our Lord may have looked or pointed at Safed, 2,650 feet above the sea, commanding one of the grandest panoramic views in Palestine. It is now one of the four holy cities of the Jews, and probably existed as a fortress in our Lord’s time (Thomson’s The Land and the Book, p. 273). The imagery might, however, come from the prophetic visions of the Zion of the future, idealising the position of the actual Zion (Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1). No image could so vividly set forth the calling of the Church of Christ as a visible society. For good or for evil, it could not fail to be prominent in the world’s history, a city of refuge for the weary, or open to the attacks of the invader.