Matthew Chapter 4 verse 10 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 10. - Get thee hence, Satan. "Avaunt, Satan" (Rheims). Christ does not address him directly till this climax. The two previous temptations were, comparatively speaking, ordinary and limited. This temptation calls out a passionate utterance of a personality stirred, because touched, in its depths. Only once again do we find our Lord so moved, in Matthew 16:23 (the "Western" and "Syrian" addition here of ὀπίσω μου from that passage emphasizes the feeling common to the two cases), when a similar representation is made to him that he ought to escape the troubles which his Messianic position, in fact, brought upon him. For it is written (Deuteronomy 6:13); from the LXX., which differs from the Hebrew by (1) translating תירא, "fear," by προσκυνήσεις (but B has φοβηθήσῃ); and (2) the paraphrastic insertion of "only." Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Worship; προσκυνέω) , as in ver. 9. Serve; λατρεύω, "in perfect subjection to a sovereign power" (Bishop Westcott on Hebrews 8:2, Add. Note). Our Lord's reply cuts up the devil's solicitation by the root. "I do not enter," he means, "into the question of thy authority over these things, and of thy power concerning them. I acknowledge thee not. The command which I willingly obey excludes all homage and service to any other over-lord than God alone. I accept not thy orders and thy methods. I take my commands direct from God." Observe that our Lord does not say how he is to gain the kingdoms for his own; this would be the care of him whose command he follows. But before ascending, the Lord proclaimed (Matthew 28:18) that he had received (i.e. gained through suffering, Hebrews 2:10: Philippians 2:9) more than (note "in heaven") what the devil would have given him as a reward of obedience to false principles.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(10) Get thee hence, Satan.--Once more the answer to the Tempter was found in the words of the Tephillim and the lessons of childhood. No evidence of power could change the eternal laws of duty. There came to the Son of Man the old command, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God," as an oracle from heaven, and this, rather than an attempt to refute the claim of sovereignty, was that on which He took His stand. Others, dealing with the same temptation, as the writers of the Book of Job and of Psalms 73, have discussed the question of the apparent triumph of evil in the world's history, and have pointed to its ultimate downfall, to the sure though slow retribution which even that history records, to the redress of the anomalies of this life in a life beyond the grave. Here we have a truer and simpler answer. Even though they cannot solve the problem, the true wisdom of men who follow in the footsteps of Christ is to recognise that their allegiance is due to God and to Him only. Here, once more, the truth thus affirmed reappears later on. When the chief of the Apostles sought to turn his Master from the appointed path of suffering, he was met, as renewing the same form of temptation which had been thus resisted, with the self-same words. Even Peter had to hear himself rebuked with "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matthew 16:23). The use of the formula here, for the first time in the conflict, is significant as implying that in the previous temptations Evil had presented itself in disguise, making sins of distrust appear as acts of faith, while now it showed itself in its naked and absolute antagonism to the divine will.