Blessed are the pure in heart— Dr. Blair supposes that this may refer to the expectation which the Jews had of possessing themselves of beautiful captives in the wars by which they fancied the Messiah's kingdom would be established. The large seraglios of eastern princes and great men, which, by a very mistaken taste, were regarded as matters of state and grandeur, might possibly give countenance to such an extravagant notion. Dr. Doddridge, therefore, in the following paraphrase, just touches upon it: "Indulge not a thought of those licentiousgratifications which are often mingled with victory, and are accounted as the pleasures of the great; happy are the men who not only abstain from these gross enormities, but are concerned that they may bepure in heart too; avoiding every irregular desire, and mortifying every unruly passion. This resolute self-denial shall be the source of nobler and more lasting pleasures; for they shall see God: thus purified and refined, they shall enjoy him in his ordinances, and in all the communications of his grace here, and dwell with him for ever in heaven." Dr. Heylin in his usual manner observes, that the purification here pronounced blessed, is an arduous work; beginning in repentance, and attended with that mourning for sin, to which a former beatitude invites. Then must we receive a knowledge of the forgiveness of sins through the blood of the covenant. But this purification is carried on by that hunger and thirst after justice mentioned in the 6th verse; and it advances still more and more in the following benediction upon the merciful; who, by the violence they do themselves, in dependence on and by the power of almighty grace, to mortify their own pride and ill-nature, so as patiently to bear with and compassionate the infirmities of their brethren, draw down upon themselves, through the alone and infinite merit of Christ, the superabundant mercy of God,whichatlengthsoconsummatestheirmortification,byasuperabundantincrease of divine grace, that they become pure in heart, and thereby are qualified for that sublime and efficaciousknowledge of the Deity, which is here called seeing God; the mental eye being irradiated from above; for God, who makethhis sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, does also from himself illumine the minds of all men, in proportion to their desire of, and earnest search after, his light; the path of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. See more in Heylin. See also the Reflections.
Dr. Campbell reads, the clean in heart. I admit, says he, that our translation, pure in heart, is a just expression of the sense, and more in the English idiom than mine. My only reason for preferring a more literal version of the Greek word καθαρος here is, because I would, in all such instances, preserve the allusion to be found in the moral maxims of the New Testament to the ancient ritual, from which the metaphors of the sacred writers, and their other tropes, are frequently borrowed, and to which they owe much of their lustre and energy. The laws in regard to the cleanness of the body, and even of the garments, if neglected by any person, excluded him from the temple. He was incapacitated for being so much as a spectator of the solemn service at the altar. The Jews considered the empyreal heaven as the archetype of the temple of Jerusalem. In the latter, they enjoyed the symbols of God's presence, who spoke to them by his ministers; whereas, in the former, the blessed inhabitants have an immediate sense of the divine presence, and God speaks to them face to face. Our Lord, preserving the analogy between the two dispensations, intimates that cleanness will be as necessary in order to procure admission into the celestial temple, as into the terrestrial. But as the privilege is inconceivably higher, the qualification is more important. The cleanness is not ceremonial, but moral; not of the outward man, but of the inward. The same idea is suggested, Psalms 24. When such allusions appear in the original, they ought, if possible, to have a place in the version.