Luke 4:9

And he led him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to guard thee: And on their hands they shall bear thee up, Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone.

The pinnacle ... It is not known exactly what part of the temple was meant by this, but it was evidently a very high portion of it. The essence of the temptation was the presumption that would have been required to act upon it. Christ did not dispute the passage Satan quoted, nor accuse him of misapplying it; it was simply the truth as stated. It would have been sinful, however, to test willfully, in any such manner, a promise of the Father. The Scripture cited by Satan is Psalms 91:11,12; and it was Satan's quotation of it here that led Shakespeare to make Antonio say, "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."Acts 1, Scene 3.">[10] This is a caution that all should heed; for it is still true that many an evil purpose has been supported by the same method.

Regarding the probable scene of this temptation, Josephus described the south elevation of the temple in Jerusalem:

It was encompassed by a deep valley along the entire south quarter; ... this valley was very deep, and its bottom could not be seen. If you looked from above into the depth, this further vastly high elevation of the cloister stood upon the height insomuch that if anyone looked down from the top of the battlements, or down both those altitudes, he would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth.[11]

There is something in this temptation of Jesus that brings to mind the impulse which comes to many persons at such places as the top of the Empire State building in New York, or on the brink of Niagara Falls, where elaborate precautions have been taken to thwart such impulses of self-destruction. In the case of Christ, that somewhat natural impulse was reinforced by the devil's suggestion that the Saviour would survive if he jumped.

Acts 1, Scene 3.">[10] William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Acts 1, Scene 3.

[11] Flavius Josephus, Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston), p. 474.