Preferable to Blessed, for which a separate word exists, is ‘Happy’, or ‘The happiness of …!’. Such was the Queen of Sheba’s exclamation in 1 Kings 10:8, and it is heard twenty-six times in the Psalter.1 This psalm goes on to show the sober choice that is its basis. The Sermon on the Mount, using the corresponding word in Greek, will go on to expound it still more radically. Counsel, way and seat (or ‘assembly’, or ‘dwelling’) draw attention to the realms of thinking, behaving
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