Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They which are persecuted - Δεδιωγμενοι, they who are hard pressed upon and pursued with repeated acts of enmity. Parkhurst. They are happy who suffer, seems a strange saying: and that the righteous should suffer, merely because they are such, seems as strange. But such is the enmity of the human heart to every thing of God and goodness, that all those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution in one form or other. As the religion of Christ gives no quarter to vice, so the vicious will give no quarter to this religion, or to its professors.
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven - That spiritual kingdom, explained Matthew 3:2, and that kingdom of glory which is its counterpart and consequence.