Matthew 5:14

Ye are the light of the world,.... What the luminaries, the sun and moon, are in the heavens, with respect to corporal light, that the apostles were in the world with regard to spiritual light;

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Ye are the light of the world , [ to (G3588) foos (G5457) tou (G3588) kosmou (G2889)].

You that are to be my apostles are so eminently, but all you that are my disciples are so also. Christ is the Light of the world ,9; but though the sun be the light of the world, yet it doth not follow that the moon and the stars also are not so: he is the original Light, the great Light who hath light from and in himself. The ministers of the gospel are the lights of the world also; the angels of churches are stars, , and holy persons are children of light, . A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. The church is often called the city of God. Christ compares his people here not to a city, but to a city upon a hill; so that all for which our Saviour mentions a city here, is the conspicuity of a city so built. It is as much as if our Saviour should have said, You had need be holy, for your conversation cannot be hid, any more than a city can that is built upon a hill, which is obvious to every eye. All men’ s eyes will be upon you.

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Ver. 14. Ye are the light of the world] And must therefore lead convincing lives, though ye incur never so much hatred of those Lucifugae, those Tenebriones of the world, that are ill afraid so much light should be diffused. But be ye blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation (as the Baptist was), among whom ye shine as lights in the world; as those great lights (φωστηρις, luminaria, Philippians 2:15), the sun and moon (so the word signifieth), so that they that speak evil of you may be judged as absurd as those Atlantes that curse the rising sun because it scorcheth them. Be as the stars at least; which are said to affect these inferior bodies by their influences, motion, and light. (Pliny.) So good ministers (as fixed stars in the Church’ s firmament) by the influence of their lips, feed; by the regular motion of their lives, confirm; and by the light of both, enlighten many. And with such orient stars this Church of ours, blessed be God, like a bright sky in a clear evening, sparkleth and is bespangled, though not in every part, yet in every zone and quarter of it. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid] As that city that is mounted on seven hills, Revelation 17:9; ( Roma Radix Omnium Malorum), Rome the root of all evils and cannot be hid, but is apparently discerned and descried to be that great city Babylon: so Augustine and other writers call it: so Bellarmine and Ribera the Jesuit yield it. ( Roma; nec inficiantur Iesuitae, Revelation 18:2) Joannes de Columna in his Mare Historiarum telleth us that Otho the emperor was once in a mind to make Rome the seat of his empire, as of old it had been. And having built a stately palace there, where formerly had stood the palace of Julian the Apostate (the Romans being much against it), he gave up the work. Theophanes, Zonaras, and Cedrenus report the like of Constans, nephew to Heraclitus, 340 years before Otho. Now that these and the like attempts took not effect, Genebrard saith it was a special providence of God, to the end that the kingdom of the Church foretold by Daniel might have Rome for its seat. If he had said, the kingdom of antichrist foretold by St Paul, and likewise by John the divine, he had divined aright. But to return from whence we are digressed:-a minister while he lived a private person, stood in the crowd, as it were: but no sooner entered into his office, than he is set up on the stage: all eyes are upon him, as they were upon Saul, who was higher by head and shoulders than the rest of the people.

(14) 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.

Verse 14. Ye are the light of the world] That is, the instruments which God chooses to make use of to illuminate the minds of men; as he uses the sun (to which probably he pointed) to enlighten the world. Light of the world, נר עולם ner olam, was a title applied to the most eminent rabbins. Christ transfers the title from these, and gives it to his own disciples, who, by the doctrines that he taught them, were to be the means of diffusing the light of life throughout the universe. A city that is set on a hill] This place may receive light from the following passage in Maundrell's Travels. "A few points toward the north (of Tabor) appears that which they call the Mount of Beatitudes, a small rising, from which our blessed Saviour delivered his sermon in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew. (See Clarke on Matthew 5:5.) Not far from this little hill is the city Saphet, supposed to be the ancient Bethulia. It stands upon a very eminent and conspicuous mountain, and is SEEN FAR and NEAR. May we not suppose that Christ alludes to this city, in these words of his, A city set on a hill cannot be hid?" p. 115. Quesnell remarks here: "The Christian life is something very high and sublime, to which we cannot arrive without pains: while it withdraws us from the earth, and carries us nearer heaven, it places us in view, and as a mark, to the malice of carnal men."

14. the light of the world] See John 8:12, where Jesus says of Himself “I am the light of the world.” Cp. Philippians 2:15, “Ye shine as lights (rather ‘luminaries’) in the world.” a city that is set on a hill …] Stanley remarks (S. and P. 337) that in Northern Palestine “the plain and mountain-sides are dotted with villages … situated for the most part (not like those of Judæa, on hilltops, or Samaria, in deep valleys, but) as in Philistia, on the slopes of the ranges which intersect or bound the plain.” The image in the text therefore recalls Judæa rather than Galilee, Bethlehem rather than Nazareth. Some however have conjectured that the lofty Safed was in sight, and was pointed to by our Lord. Land and Book, 273.

The light of the world - The light of the world often denotes the sun, John 11:9. The sun renders objects visible, shows their form, their nature, their beauties, their deformities.

14. Ye — Apostles, and indeed all Christians — are the light of the world — For how dark the world would be without a Christ, a Gospel, a Holy Spirit, and a Church!