Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 4:5

"Then the devil taketh him into the holy city; and he set him on the pinnacle of the temple," — Matthew 4:5 (ASV)

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).