appeared in public : forty days, as if for the sake of preparation before His ascension. — vffTipov, afterwards) up to this point it had not been so much a temptation as a preparation for it : cf. the beginning of the following verse. — s^slvaai, He hungered) Hunger is a very bitter temptation ; thirst He experienced in His passion. This temptation may be compared with that which is described in Gen. iii. : the Tempter employed the same arts ; but that cause, which the first-formed pair of the human race had lost, Christ restored.
3. UpossX^uv Avrti, having come to Hint) sc. in a visible form. The Tempter watched his time.1 — 6 Kt<pd?uv, the tempter) who did not wish it to be known that he was Satan : yet Christ at the conclusion of the interview, and not till then, calls him, in ver. 10, Satan, after that Satan had plainly betrayed his satanity, i.e.) pride, his peculiar characteristic. Thus, by Divine skill, He defeated his infernal skill. The tempter seems to have appeared under the form of a ypaf/^arsvc, scribe, since our Lord thrice replies to him by the word, ytypa<xra.i, " It is written" — si, if) Thus also, in ver. 6, Satan both doubts himself, and en deavours to produce doubt, to take away that which is true, to teach that which is false. He solicits our Lord, stating that hypothetically, which had been (iii. 17) declared categorically from heaven. — g/V«, x.r.X., command, etc.) The tempter acknow ledges that He who is the Son of God must be Almighty. — el, x.r.X., these, etc.) i.e., that some one of these stones become bread [or a loaf~\ : see Luke iv. 3, [where it is, " Command this stone (sing.) that it be made bread."] — X/3o/, stones) q. d., " You are in the wilderness, which has hard stones, but no bread." Nay, on very different grounds shalt thou become convinced, O Tempter, that this is the Son of God. Soon will He com mence the work of thy destruction. See Luke iv. 34, 41.
4. Ti-ypa-TTTai, it is written) Jesus does not appeal to the Voice from heaven : He does not reply to the arguments of the Tempter : against those arguments He employs the Scripture alone, and simply cites its assertions. He declines to state
1 Our Lord spent that season of the year in the wilderness, in which the nights are longer, the wild beasts more ravenous, the weather more incle ment, and when there was no means of obtaining food either from trees or herbs. — See Harm. Evang. 149.