The set of verses from 3–12 form the Beatitudes generally familiar from Matthew and are a textual unit that repeats multiple phrases in a formulaic way. The Beatitudes are connected through proximity and structure, but the content of each is discrete. They do not build upon each other. No rhetorical logic moves the discourse from one to the next. The block of unrelated blessing statements simply portrays various ways in which the people may be blessed. It recognizes that there are differences in people and that the Lord recognizes, accepts, and blesses those differences.
Comparison: The only difference between this verse and Matthew 5:3 is the addition of “yea” at its beginning. This interjection provides a transition from the unique Book of Mormon text preceding this verse and the text that follows.
New Testament Context: A set of people defined as “poor in spirit” are blessed with “the kingdom of heaven.” The blessing form sets up a current/future contrast that contains a reversal. Those who are poor on earth do not have access to wealth and power. Nevertheless, it is these very people who will have the whole of the kingdom of heaven in the next. That which is denied on earth will be bestowed in heaven.
This analysis requires that we understand that “poor” contrasts with “kingdom,” a proposition that should not be difficult. Nevertheless, it becomes even more pertinent when we realize that the poor of Jesus’s time were a different type of poor than had existed in previous ages. Richard A. Horsley, professor of religion at the University of Massachusetts, and Neil Asher Silberman, an author and historian, note:
Since the agricultural productivity of the Land of Israel was never exceptionally high even under the most favorable conditions, and since even the slightest reduction in crop yields made it impossible for many peasant families to produce enough for both taxes and family survival, an increasing number of farmers were forced to borrow against future harvests in order to be able to retain enough of their crops and animals to carry them over to the next year.
Indeed, the evidence drawn from rabbinic literature and from legal documents of the period suggests that rural indebtedness dramatically increased throughout the Herodian administration and the priestly aristocracy. Yet the stop-gap measure soon had catastrophic consequences: once a peasant farmer pledged away an even greater proportion of the next harvest, it was unlikely that he could avoid sinking even deeper into debt in the following years. And since the only collateral that peasants could use to obtain loans was the land that had been farmed by their families for generations, their inability to repay mounting debts eventually resulted in foreclosure. In many cases, that legal action would have changed once-free villagers working the lands of their ancestors into permanently impoverished sharecroppers eking out a living on vast (and rapidly growing) aristocratic estates.
The poor in New Testament times were in desperate need—so far from having a “kingdom” that many no longer even owned the land they farmed. It is this sharp difference between their current economic state and their promised heavenly economic state that identifies the blessing. They endure terrible oppression on earth but are redeemed in heaven.
When Luke records this same basic beatitude, he does so without the Matthean phrase “in spirit”: “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Most commentators on Matthew agree that “in spirit” is a later modification to the statement. Nevertheless, it is appropriate because it is not economic poverty that qualifies the poor for the kingdom of God. The literary contrast is between the poor and the kingdom, but the reason that the poor will achieve the kingdom is not their lack of access to the world’s goods, but rather the fact that their poverty requires them to rely on God instead of their own resources. (See commentary accompanying Alma 32:14–15.)
Book of Mormon Context: In the Mesoamerican world, there were certainly poor, but the Book of Mormon descriptions of the poor tend to equate them with farmers as opposed to city-dwellers, a contrast intended to describe a difference in social class rather than the contrast between want and wealth. There is no individual land ownership noted in the Book of Mormon, and there was none in ancient Mesoamerica. The entire economic structure that created the type of poverty that formed the massive contrast between “poor” and “kingdom” did not exist in Mesoamerica.
Although the economic problem was not as great, a social hierarchy was evidenced throughout much of Mesoamerica and formed a consistent theme for Nephite prophets who called for repentance. Social distinction and social classes provided a different definition of poverty, while sharing the understanding of a difference between access to economic goods in this world and what might come later. The Nephites’ ability to become humble through their poverty, particularly when accentuated by a distinct social hierarchy, is demonstrated by the poor among the Zoramites, to whom Alma said:
I say unto you, it is well that ye are cast out of your synagogues, that ye may be humble, and that ye may learn wisdom; for it is necessary that ye should learn wisdom; for it is because that ye are cast out, that ye are despised of your brethren because of your exceeding poverty, that ye are brought to a lowliness of heart; for ye are necessarily brought to be humble.
And now, because ye are compelled to be humble blessed are ye; for a man sometimes, if he is compelled to be humble, seeketh repentance; and now surely, whosoever repenteth shall find mercy; and he that findeth mercy and endureth to the end the same shall be saved.
And now, as I said unto you, that because ye were compelled to be humble ye were blessed, do ye not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word?
Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed—yea, much more blessed than they who are compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty.
Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe. (Alma 32:12–16)
The position of the poor among the Zoramites was more marked than in other Nephite cities for the very reason that the Zoramites had adopted a strict social hierarchy. Thus, the idea of being “poor in spirit” was entirely appropriate for the Mesoamerican audience, a message they had heard before.