Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 4

The narrative of the Temptation is admittedly one of the most mysterious in the Gospel records. In one respect it stands almost, if not entirely, alone: it could not have come, directly or indirectly, from an eyewitness. We are compelled to view it as either a mythical addition, a supernatural revelation of facts that could not otherwise be known, or, finally, as originating from our Lord’s own account of what He had experienced.

The first of these views is natural for those who apply the same theory to everything marvelous and supernatural in our Lord’s life. As a theory for interpreting the Gospels in general, however, that view has not been adopted in this Commentary. There are certainly no reasons why we should accept it here when we have rejected it elsewhere. If it had been based on the narrative of the first Adam’s temptation in Genesis 3, we would have expected the same symbolism to recur—that of the serpent and the trees. Nothing else in the Old Testament, and nothing in the popular expectations of the Christ, could have suggested anything of the kind. The ideal Christ of those expectations would have been a great and mighty king, displaying his wisdom and glory like the historical son of David, not a sufferer who was tried and tempted.

The forms of the Temptation, and even more so the answers to them, have a distinct individuality. This is something one might just conceive of in the work of a consummate artist, but it is utterly unlike the beautiful or grand imagery found in most myths. Therefore, this narrative will be treated here as the record of an actual experience. To assume that this record was miraculously revealed to St. Matthew and St. Luke, however, is to introduce a hypothesis that cannot be proven and is, at the very least, not in harmony with their general character as writers. They are distinctly compilers from many different sources—one by his own statement, the other by inference from the structure and contents of his Gospel—with all the incidental variations that such a process entails. There is no reason to view this narrative as an exception to the general rule. The very difference in the order of the temptations is, as far as it goes, against the idea of a supernatural revelation.

This leaves, then, the conclusion that we have here something that originated in a communication from our Lord’s own lips to one of His disciples—His own record of the experience of those forty days. Viewed this way, it becomes clear that everything is coherent and, in a sense, natural (as marvelous as the whole event is). It throws light on our Lord’s past life and explains much that followed in His teaching.

Led up of the spirit — Each narrator expresses the same fact in slightly different language. St. Luke writes that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led in the wilderness (Luke 4:1). St. Mark, more vividly, says, Immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness (Mark 1:12). What is meant by such language? The answer is found in analogous instances involving seers and prophets. St. John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day (Revelation 1:10). The Spirit lifted up Ezekiel so that from his exile by the banks of the Chebar he might see the secret sins of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8:3). The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip (Acts 8:39). Those who spoke with tongues spoke by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:2). The result of this induction leads us to think of the state described as being, more or less, in the nature of an ecstasy, in which the ordinary phenomena of consciousness and physical life were largely suspended. That gift of the Spirit had something of the same overpowering mastery on the human nature of the Son of Man that it has had over other sons of men. A power mightier than His own human will was urging Him on—it might almost be said He did not know where—bringing Him into conflict not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers in heavenly places.

To be tempted of the devil — At the outset of the narrative, we are brought face to face with the problem of the existence and personality of the power of evil. Here, that existence and personality are placed before us in the most distinct language. Whatever difficulties such a view may seem to present, and whatever objections may be brought against it, are altogether outside the scope of the interpreter of Scripture. It may be urged that the writers of what we call the Scriptures inherited a mistaken creed on this point (though all deeper experience is opposed to this). It might also be argued that they accommodated themselves to the ideas of a creed they did not hold (though there is not a particle of evidence for such a hypothesis). But it would be the boldest of all paradoxes to assert that they do not teach the existence of an evil power whom they call the Enemy, the Accuser, the Devil.

From where the name came and how the belief arose are, on the other hand, questions that the interpreter is bound to answer. The name "devil" (diabolos, meaning accuser or slanderer) appears in the Septuagint version of 1 Chronicles 21:1; Job 1:6; and Job 2:1 as the equivalent for the Hebrew "Satan" (the adversary). He appears there as a spiritual being of superhuman but limited power, tempting people to evil and accusing them before the Throne of God when they have yielded to the temptation. In Zechariah 3:1–2, the same name appears in both the Hebrew and the Septuagint, connected with a similar character, as the accuser of Joshua the son of Jozedek. In Wisdom 2:24, the name is identified with the Tempter of Genesis 3. Since that book belongs to the half-century before, or more probably the half-century after, our Lord’s birth, it may fairly be taken as representing the accepted belief of the Jews in His time.

Our Lord was now brought into conflict with such a Being. The temptations that come to other people from their bodily desires, or from the evils of the world around them, had no power over Him; they had not brought even the sense of effort or pain in being overcome. But if His life had continued this way to the end, the holiness inseparable from it would have been imperfect in at least one respect: it would not have earned Him the power to understand and sympathize with sinners. As the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, there was a divine appropriateness in Him also suffering and being tempted as we are, so that He might be able to succour them that are tempted (Hebrews 2:18).

The scene of the Temptation was probably not far from that of the Baptism and, as it implies solitude, likely on the eastern rather than the western side of the Jordan. The traditional Desert of Quarantania (a name referring to the forty-day fast) is in the vicinity of Jericho. The histories of Moses and Elijah might suggest the Wilderness of Sinai, but in that case, it would have probably been mentioned by the Evangelists.

Here we see an obvious parallel with the fasts of Moses (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8), and we may well think of it as deliberately planned. Prolonged fasts of nearly the same duration have been recorded in later times. The effect of such a fast on any human organism, and therefore on our Lord’s real humanity, would be to interrupt the ordinary continuity of life and heighten all perceptions of the spiritual world to a new intensity.

It should be noted that Luke describes the temptation as continuing through the entire period, so what is recorded was only the crowning conflict, gathering into one the struggles that preceded it. The one feature unique to Mark (who omits the specific history of the temptations)—that our Lord was with the wild beasts (Mark 1:13)—suggests that their presence, their yells of hunger, their ravening fierceness, and their wild, glaring eyes had left an ineffable and indelible impression of horror, in addition to the terrors and loneliness of the wilderness itself.

He was afterward an hungred.—These words imply a partial return to the common life of sensation. The cravings of the body finally made themselves felt, and in them, together with the memory of the divine witness given forty days before, the Tempter found the starting point for his first attack. There may well have been preludes to that attack during the previous time of trial; now, it came more distinctly.

When the tempter came — Nothing in the narrative suggests a physical presence visible to the natural eye. All attempts to portray it this way, whether by Milton in Paradise Regained or by rationalistic commentators who held that the Tempter was a scribe or priest, are unauthorized and diminish our sense of the reality and mystery of the Temptation. The narrative is no less real and true because it takes place entirely in the spiritual realm of a person's life.

If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread — The phrase these stones seems to be united with a glance and gesture, pointing to the loaf-like flints of the Jordan desert. The nature of the temptation, as far as we can grasp its mysterious depth, was likely complex. There may have been an external suggestion, similar to what was expressed in Esau’s cry, What profit shall this birthright do to me? (Genesis 25:32). Hungry and exhausted, with life seeming to ebb away in the terrible loneliness of the desert and with wild beasts around Him as if waiting for their prey, what good would it be to have been designated the Son of God, the long-expected Christ?

This was combined with another thought. If He were the Son of God, did not that name involve a lordship over nature? Could He not satisfy His hunger and sustain His life? By exercising the power He now, perhaps for the first time, consciously possessed, would He not be establishing His status as the Christ in the eyes of others? That thought presented itself to His mind, but it was rejected as coming from the Enemy. It would have been an act of self-assertion and distrust, and therefore would have involved not the affirmation, but the denial of the Sonship which had so recently been attested.

It is written—The words of all three answers to the Tempter come from two chapters of Deuteronomy. One of these (Deuteronomy 6) supplied a passage (Deuteronomy 6:4–9) for the phylacteries, or frontlets, worn by devout Jews. This fact is suggestive in every way. A prominence was thus given to that portion of the book, making it an essential part of every Israelite's education.

We must believe that the words our Lord now uses had been familiar to Him from His childhood, and that He had understood their meaning correctly. With these words, He may have sustained the faith of others during the struggles with poverty and want in His Nazareth home. Now, He finds in them a truth that belongs to His high calling as well as to His life of lowliness: Not by bread only does man live, but by the word—that is, the will—of God.

He can leave His life and all that belongs to it in His Father’s hands. In losing His life this way, should that be the outcome, He is certain that He will save it. If His Father has given Him a work to do, He will enable Him to fulfill it.

Just as this act of faith points back to the training of His childhood, we can also trace its echoes in His later teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25–32), in Matthew 10:39, and even more so in John 6. The wilderness experience gave the history of the bread from heaven a new significance.

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. This was especially likely if the trial was protracted and the temptations were therefore recurring, as the narratives of St. Mark and St. Luke show. St. Matthew’s order seems, on the whole, the most accurate, and “Get behind me, Satan,” fits in better as the conclusion of the conflict.

Takes him up into the holy city—The use of this term to describe Jerusalem (Luke 4:9) is unique to St. Matthew among the Evangelists, and he uses it again in Matthew 27:53. St. John uses it in Revelation 11:2 for the literal Jerusalem and in Revelation 21:2 for the heavenly Jerusalem. The analogy of Ezekiel 37:1 and 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 something outside the conditions of physical movement. As St. Paul said of his own similar spiritual experiences, so we must say of this: Whether it was in the body or out of the body, we do not know; God knows (2 Corinthians 12:2).

A pinnacle of the Temple—More accurately, the pinnacle, as the Greek has the article. The Greek word, like “pinnacle,” is the diminutive of “wing” and seems to have been applied to any pointed roof or gable. In this case, considering the position and structure of the Temple, we may think of the point or parapet of Herod’s portico overlooking the Kidron Valley, rising to a dizzying height of 400 cubits above it (Josephus, Antiquities 15.11.5).

Our Lord's earlier visits to Jerusalem must have made the scene familiar to Him. In past years, He may have looked down from that portico on the dark gorge below. Now, a new thought is presented to Him: Should He test the declaration that He was the beloved Son by throwing Himself headlong down? Was there not an apparent warrant for such a trial—the crucial experiment of His Sonship? Had not the Psalmist declared of God's chosen one that His angels would bear Him up?

This seems a much more accurate view than that the point of the temptation was for Him to perform a sign or wonder—gaining power and popularity by throwing Himself from the parapet that overlooked the court of the worshippers in their presence. The answer to the Tempter shows that the suggestion tended not toward vainglory, but toward a distrust disguised as reliance. It is a curious coincidence that James the Just, the brother of the Lord, is said to have been thrown down from “the pinnacle of the Temple” into one of its courts (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 2.23).