Cu. IV.) MATTHEW. ON
Spirit with the visible appearance of a dove must be sought for . . . Z it would lie in the acknowledgment of Jesus as the ideal typical Israelite, the representative of his people.”
1. The Devil (rod SaBorov). The word means calumniator slanderer. It is sometimes applied to men, as to Judas (John 7 70); in 1 Tim. iii. 11 (slanderers) ; and in 2 Tim. iii. 3, and Tit. ii. 3 ( false accusers). In such cases never with the article. Zhe Devil, Satan, the god of this world (0 dsdGones), is always with the article and never plural. This should be distinguished from another word, also wrongly rendered devil in the A. V.— Saiu@v, and its more common neuter form dapovor, both of which should be translated demon, meaning the unclean spir- its which possessed men, and were cast out by Christ and his apostles. The Rev., unfortunately, and against the protest of the American revisers, retains deve) for both words, except in Acts xvii. 18, where it renders as A. V. gods.
The Son of God. By its position in the sentence Son is em- phatic. “If thou standest to God in the relation of Son.”
Bread (dpro). Lit., Joaves or cakes. So Wye., Zoaves. These stones were perhaps those “ silicious accretions,” which assume the exact shape of little loaves of bread, and which were repre- sented in legend as the petrified fruits of the cities of the plain. By a similar fancy certain erystallizations on Mount Carmel and near Bethlehem are called “ Elijah’s melons,” and the “ Virgin Mary’s peas ;” and the black and white stones found along the shores of the Lake of Galilee have been transformed into traces of the tears of Jacob in search of Joseph. The very appearance of these stones, like the bread for which the faint body hun- gered, may have added force to the temptation. This resem- blance may have been present to Christ’s mind in his words at Matt. vii. 9.
28 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IV.
4. It is written (yéyparra). The perfect tense. “It has been written, and stands written.” The first recorded words of Jesus after his entrance upon his ministry are an assertion of the authority of scripture, and that though he had the fulness of the Spirit. When addressing man, our Lord seldom quoted scripture, but said, J say unto you. In answer to Satan he says, Lt is written.
5. Taketh (raparapBave). The preposition rapa (with, by the side of ), implies taketh along with himself, or conducteth. It is the same word which all three evangelists use of our Lord’s taking his chosen apostles to the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1; Mark ix. 2; Luke ix. 28).
The holy city. Matthew alone calls Jerusalem by this name, in accordance with the general intent of his gospel to con- nect the old economy with the new.
Pinnacle of the temple (76 rreptyiov rob iepotd). Pinnacle, from the Latin pinnaculum, a diminutive of pinna or penna (@ wing), is a literal translation of mrepvyiov, which is also a diminutive (a@ little wing or winglet). Nothing in the word compels us to infer that Christ was placed on the top of a tower or spire, which is the popular meaning of pinnacle. The word may be used in the familiar English sense of the wing of a building. Herod’s temple had two wings, the northern and southern, of which the southern was the higher and grander ; that being the direction in which the chief enlargement of the temple area made by Herod was practicable. That enlarge- ment, according to Josephus, was effected by building up walls — of solid masonry from the valley below. At the extremity of the southern side of the area, was erected the “ royal portico,” a magnificent colonnade, consisting of a nave and two aisles, running across the entire space from the eastern to the western wall. Josephus further says, that “while the valley of itself was very deep, and its bottom could scarcely be seen when one looked down from above, the additional vastly high elevation of the portico was placed on that height, insomuch that, if any