Matthew 4:5 - Exposition

Then the devil taketh him up. Revised Version omits "up." Matthew ( παραλαμβάνει , here and verse 8) lays stress on the companionship, and, in a sense, compulsion; Luke ( ἤγαγεν , verse 9; ἀναγαγὼν , verse 5), on guidance and locality. Into the holy city (Luke, "into Jerusalem"). From Isaiah 52:1 , the end of which verse, "There shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean," heightens the implied contrast of the devil's presence there. (For the expression, cf. also Matthew 27:53 ; Revelation 11:2 ; Revelation 21:2 , Revelation 21:10 ; also Hebrews 11:1-40 .,12.) The name has remained down to the present day ( El-Kuds ) . And setteth ; and he set (Revised Version, with manuscripts). The right reading ( ἔστησεν , as in Luke) is probably a trace of the basis common to the two records. Possibly, however, it may here be a merely accidental similarity with Luke (who employs the aorist throughout the section), caused by Matthew's desire to emphasize the momentariness of the devil's act. Some think that, as at the end of the temptation Christ is in the wilderness, this removal to Jerusalem is solely mental, without any motion of his body. Improbable; for to make such a temptation real , our Lord's mind must have suffered complete illusion. He must have thought that he was "on the pinnacle." On a ( the , Revised Version) pinnacle of the temple ( ἐπὶ τογιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ ) What is exactly meant by this definite and evidently well-known term is not easy now to determine. "Some understand this of the top or apex of the sanctuary ( τοῦ ναοῦ ) [cf. Hegesippus, in Eusebius, 'Hist. Eccl.,' Ecclesiastes 2:23 :11, 12 (Heinichen), where the Jews bid James stand, ἐπὶ τογιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ , and it is afterwards said that they set him ἐπὶ τογιον τοῦ ναοῦ ]; others of the top of Solomon's porch; and others of the top of the Royal Portico" (Thayer). Of this last Josephus ('Ant.,' 15.11. 5) makes special mention, saying, in his exaggerated style, that human sight could not reach from the top of it to the bottom of the ravine on whose edge it stood. Edersheim ('Life,' etc., 1:303) thinks that possibly the term means "the extreme corner of the 'wing-like' porch, or ulam , which led into the Sanctuary." This last would suit a possible interpretation of Daniel 9:27 , as referring to a part of the temple under the name of "the pinnacle," which had been used for heathen sacrifices, probably in the worship of the sun. Cf. Revised Version margin there, with the ἐπὶ τον of Theodotion's version, and also the LXX . itself ( vide Field's 'Hexapla').