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Matthew 4:2. καὶ νηστεύσας. The fasting was spontaneous, not ascetic, due to mental preoccupation. In such a place there was no food to be had, but Jesus did not desire it. The aorist implies that a period of fasting preceded the sense of hunger. The period of forty days and nights may be a round number.—ἐπείνασεν, He at last felt hunger. This verb like διψάω contracts in α rather than η in later Greek. Both take an accusative in Matthew 5:6.

Matthew 4:3-4. First temptation, through hunger.

Matthew 4:3. προσελθὼν, another of the evangelist’s favourite words, implies that the tempter is conceived by the narrator as approaching outwardly in visible form.—εἰπὲ ἵνα: literally “speak in order that”. Some grammarians see in this use of ἵνα with the subjunctive a progress in the later Macedonian Greek onwards towards modern Greek, in which νά with subjunctive entirely supersedes the infinitive. Buttmann (Gram. of the N. T.) says that the chief deviation in the N. T. from classic usage is that ἵνα appears not only after complete predicates, as a statement of design, but after incomplete predicates, supplying their necessary complements (cf. Mark 6:25; Mark 9:30). εἰπὲ here may be classed among verbs of commanding which take ἵνα after them.—οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι, these stones lying about, hinting at the desert character of the scene.—ἄρτοι γέν., that the rude pieces of stone may be turned miraculously into loaves. Weiss (Meyer) disputes the usual view that the temptation of Jesus lay in the suggestion to use His miraculous power in His own behoof. He had no such power, and if He had, why should He not use it for His own benefit as well as other men’s? He could only call into play by faith the power of God, and the temptation lay in the suggestion that His Messianic vocation was doubtful it God did not come to His help at this time. This seems a refinement. Hunger represents human wants, and the question was: whether Sonship was to mean exemption from these, or loyal acceptance of them as part of Messiah’s experience. At bottom the issue raised was selfishness or self-sacrifice. Selfishness would have been shown either in the use of personal power or in the wish that God would use it.

Matthew 4:4. ὁ δὲ ἀποκ. εἶπεν: Christ’s reply in this case as in the others is taken from Deuteronomy (Matthew 8:3, Sept[14]), which seems to have been one of His favourite books. Its humane spirit, with laws even for protecting the animals, would commend it to His mind. The word quoted means, man is to live a life of faith in and dependence on God. Bread is a mere detail in that life, not necessary though usually given, and sure to be supplied somehow, as long as it is desirable. Ζῆν ἐπὶ is unusual, but good Greek (De Wette).

[14] Septuagint.

Matthew 4:5-7. Second temptation. τστε παραλαμ.… τοῦ ἱεροῦ: τότε has the force of “next,” and implies a closer order of sequence than Luke’s καὶ (Matthew 4:5). παραλαμβάνει, historical present with dramatic effect; seizes hold of Him and carries Him to.—τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν: Jerusalem so named as if with affection (vide Matthew 5:35 and especially Matthew 27:53, where the designation recurs). τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ: some part of the temple bearing the name of “the winglet,” and overhanging a precipice. Commentators busy themselves discussing what precisely and where it was.

Matthew 4:6. βάλε σεαυτὸν κάτω: This suggestion strongly makes for the symbolic or parabolic nature of the whole representation. The mad proposal could hardly be a temptation to such an one as Jesus, or indeed to any man in his senses. The transit through the air from the desert to the winglet, like that of Ezekiel, carried by a lock of his hair from Babylon to Jerusalem, must have been “in the visions of God” (Ezekiel 8:3), and the suggestion to cast Himself down a parabolic hint at a class of temptations, as the excuses in the parable of the Supper (Luke 14:16) simply represent the category of preoccupation. What is the class represented? Not temptations through vanity or presumption, but rather to reckless escape from desperate situations. The second temptation, like the first, belongs to the category of need. The Satanic suggestion is that there can be no sonship where there are such inextricable situations, in proof of which the Psalter is quoted (Psalm 91:11-12).—γέγραπται, it stands written, not precisely as Satan quotes it, the clause τοῦ διαφυλάξαι σε ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ὁδοῖς σου being omitted. On this account many commentators charge Satan with mutilating and falsifying Scripture.

Matthew 4:7. Jesus replies by another quotation from Deut. (Matthew 6:16).—πάλιν, on the other hand, not contradicting but qualifying: “Scriptura per scripturam interpretanda et concilianda,” Bengel. The reference is to the incident at Rephidim (Exodus 17:1-7), where the people virtually charged God with bringing them out of Egypt to perish with thirst, the scene of this petulant outburst receiving the commemorative name of Massah and Meribah because they tempted Jehovah, saying: “Is Jehovah among us or not?” An analogous situation in the life of Jesus may be found in Gethsemane, where He did not complain or tempt, but uttered the submissive, “If it be possible”. The leap down at that crisis would have consisted in seeking escape from the cross at the cost of duty. The physical fall from the pinnacle is an emblem of a moral fall. Before passing from this temptation I note that the hypothesis that it was an appeal, to vanity presupposes a crowd at the foot to witness the performance, of Which there is no mention.

Matthew 4:8-10. Third temptation. εἰς ὄρος ὑψηλὸν λίαν: a mountain high enough for the purpose. There is no such mountain in the world, not even in the highest ranges, “not to be sought for in terrestrial geography,” says De Wette. The vision of all the kingdoms and their glory was not physical.—τοῦ κόσμου. What world? Palestine merely, or all the world, Palestine excepted? or all the world, Palestine included? All these alternatives have been supported. The last is the most likely. The second harmonises with the ideas of contemporary Jews, who regarded the heathen world as distinct from the Holy Land, as belonging to the devil. The tempter points in the direction of a universal Messianic empire, and claims power to give effect to the dazzling prospect.

Matthew 4:9. ἐὰν πεσὼν προσκυνήσῃς μοι. This is the condition, homage to Satan as the superior. A naïve suggestion, but pointing to a subtle form of temptation, to which all ambitious, self-seeking men succumb, that of gaining power by compromise with evil. The danger is greatest when the end is good. “The end sanctifies the means.” Nowhere is homage to Satan more common than in connection with sacred causes, the interests of truth, righteousness, and God. Nothing tests purity of motive so thoroughly as temptations of this class. Christ was proof against them. The prince of the world found nothing of this sort in Him (John 14:30). In practice this homage, if Jesus had been willing to render it, would have taken the form of conciliating the Pharisees and Sadducees, and pandering to the prejudices of the people. He took His own path, and became a Christ, neither after the type imagined by the Baptist, nor according to the liking of the Jews and their leaders. So He gained universal empire, but at a great cost.

Matthew 4:10. ὕπαγε σατανᾶ. Jesus passionately repels the Satanic suggestion. The ὕπαγε σ. is true to His character. The suggestions of worldly wisdom always roused in Him passionate aversion. The ὀπίσω μου of some MSS. does not suit this place; it is imported from Matthew 16:23, where it does suit, the agent of Satan in a temptation of the same sort being a disciple. Christ’s final word to the tempter is an absolute, peremptory Begone. Yet He condescends to support His authoritative negative by a Scripture text, again from Deut. (Matthew 6:13), slightly adapted, προσκυνήσεις being substituted for φοβηθήσῃ (the μόνῳ in second clause is omitted in Swete’s Sept[15]). It takes the accusative here instead of dative, as in Matthew 4:9, because it denotes worship proper (Weiss-Meyer). The quotation states a principle in theory acknowledged by all, but how hard to work it out faithfully in life!

[15] Septuagint.