Be Still And Know

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. For us, hunger and thirst will normally be very brief experiences, easily satiated by going to the fridge or turning on a tap. But many Jesus was speaking to originally would have had a very different experience because they were poor and therefore extremely vulnerable. If they had a bad harvest they would most likely go hungry. And because water would often be drawn from a well or a river they might have had a long journey to get more of it. Hungering and thirsting would have been common experiences. Let’s remind ourselves too that our New Testament is a translation from Greek. In our verse today the translators have chosen to use the word ‘justice’ as being the thing for which people hunger and thirst. Justice is certainly part of it, but the Greek word has a much broader meaning than that. It is basically everything good and right that characterises the kingdom of God. The word is often translated by the word ‘righteousness’