Matthew 5:6
What does Matthew 5:6 mean?
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
The short answer
Matthew 5:6 is the fourth of Jesus' Beatitudes: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Read quickly, it can sound like a blessing on the spiritually ambitious — people trying hard to be good. But the wording repays a slower look. Jesus does not bless those who hunger to *be* righteous. He blesses those who hunger *for* righteousness — for righteousness itself to arrive.
That distinction matters because the Greek word behind "righteousness," dikaiosynē, can just as accurately be translated "justice." Scholar Alyce McKenzie points out that this verse is about people who long for the world to be a righteous place — people who want what is right to be done *to* them, not simply people who want to do right themselves. She describes them memorably as people "starved for justice." On this reading, the beatitude speaks first to the wronged: those cheated, overlooked, or mistreated, who ache for things to be set straight.
The imagery Jesus chooses reinforces this. Hunger and thirst are not mild preferences; they are bodily needs that grow more insistent the longer they go unmet. To hunger and thirst for justice is to feel its absence the way a starving person feels an empty stomach — daily, physically, unavoidably.
And then comes the promise: "they shall be filled." The verb is passive — those who hunger will not have to fill themselves. Someone else, God, will do the filling. The verse does not say when, and that honesty is part of its power. It is a promise made to people still waiting, assuring them that their ache is not foolish and their longing is not wasted. Justice delayed, the beatitude insists, is not justice denied forever.
What scholars say
Does this verse bless people striving to be good, or people longing for goodness to be done to them? McKenzie answers by looking closely at the Greek word dikaiosynē, which can mean either "righteousness" or "justice."
“Matthew 5:6 does not speak of those who yearn to be righteous people but, rather, of those who yearn for righteousness, that is, for the world to be a righteous place, or indeed, a place where they are treated righteously. In short, they are not people who yearn to do what is right, but people who yearn to have “what is right” done to them. Remembering that the Greek word dikaiosynē can be translated either “righteousness” or “justice,” I suggest that people who hunger for righteousness may also be described as people who are “starved for justice.”
What it means for you
If you have been wronged and can't stop wanting things made right, Matthew 5:6 says that longing is not bitterness to be suppressed — it is a hunger God intends to satisfy. You are allowed to want justice, to name what happened, and to keep hoping without pretending it doesn't hurt.
And if life has treated you gently, the verse invites a different response: to notice the people around you who are starved for justice, and to take their hunger seriously. Caring about fairness — in your workplace, your neighborhood, your family — is not a distraction from faith. According to this beatitude, it is close to the heart of it.
Matthew 5 in context
Matthew 5 opens the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' longest recorded teaching. He begins with the Beatitudes (verses 3–12), a series of blessings pronounced on surprising people: the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the persecuted. Verse 6 sits in the middle of this list, sharing its pattern — a present blessing paired with a future promise. From there the chapter moves to images of salt and light and then to Jesus' teaching on the law, where the theme of righteousness returns repeatedly. The Beatitudes set the tone: God's favor rests where the world least expects it.