come “not to abolish but to fulfill” (v. 17). If this reading is correct, it should, nonetheless, not tempt us to read the Beatitudes as ethical imperative rather than eschatological blessings. If the Sermon is the new Torah, the set of Beatitudes, as its preamble, is analogous to the opening claim of the Ten Commandments: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod. 20:2). As Moses’s Torah is legitimized by the liberation from slavery, Jesus’