Matthew Chapter 4 verse 5 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 5. - Then the devil taketh him up. Revised Version omits "up." Matthew (παραλαμβάνει, here and ver. 8) lays stress on the companionship, and, in a sense, compulsion; Luke (ἤγαγεν, ver. 9; ἀναγαγὼν, ver. 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, 10; also Hebrews 11, 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 τὸ πτερύγιον 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.,' 2:23:11, 12 (Heinichen), where the Jews bid James stand, ἐπὶ τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ, and it is afterwards said that they set him ἐπὶ τὸ πτερύγιον 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 τὸ ἱερόν of Theodotion's version, and also the LXX. itself (vide Field's 'Hexapla').

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(5) The order of the last two temptations is different in St. Luke, and the variation is instructive. Either St. Luke's informant was less accurate than St. Matthew's, or the impressions left on the minds of those to whom the mystery had been communicated were slightly different. Especially was this likely to be the case, if the trial had been (as the narratives of St. Mark and St. Luke show) protracted, and the temptations therefore recurring. St. Matthew's order seems, on the whole, the truest, and the "Get thee behind me, Satan," fits in better with the close of the conflict.Taketh him up into the holy city.--The use of this term to describe Jerusalem (Luke 4:9) is peculiar to St. Matthew among the Evangelists, and is used again by him in Matthew 27:53. St. John uses it in Revelation 11:2 of the literal, in Revelation 21:2 of the heavenly, Jerusalem. The analogy of Ezekiel 37:1; Ezekiel 40:2, where the prophet is carried from place to place in the vision of God, leads us to think of this "taking" as outside the conditions of local motion. As St. Paul said of like spiritual experiences of his own (2Corinthians 12:2), so we must say of this, Whether it was in the body, or out of the body, we know not, God knoweth. . . .