His office. — ti{ rr,v ayiav KO\IV, into the holy city) where an angelic guard might have seemed especially to be expected. — IT/ upon) Our Lord was as truly on the pinnacle, and on the mountain, as He was in the desert. — Trapuy/ov, pinnacle) to which the ascent was far more easy than the descent from it. What this pinnacle was, antiquarians doubt.1 Christ was tempted by height and depth.
6. rtypavrai, it is written) A most specious temptation, which appears to quote Scripture appositely. There is no doubt but that Satan must have often felt the force of this saying, from the protection which the angels extended to the godly against him. — on — Tep/ ffov y.ai M, jc.r.A.) He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. The LXX. render Ps. xci. (xc.) 11, 12, — on — vipi sou, ro\j diatpvXd^ai ffs sv wdffaig ra?( odoTc dou OT/, X.T.X., He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy way : they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. The fraud of Satan consists rather in false application, than in omission. — l<x) wpuv, in their hands) That is, they shall guard Thee with great circumspection. — Xtdov, a stone) i.e., one of those of which the Temple was built. The tempter applies the psalm speciously.
7. TldXiv yiypavrai, it is written again) Although Satan re torted the phrase, " It is written," Jesus does not suffer it to be forcibly taken from Him as something trite, but employs it three times. Scripture is to be interpreted and reconciled by Scrip-
1 TO wt-spvyiov. The article TO indicates something single of its kind ; and, therefore, TTtpvyioy cannot mean a porticus or corridor ; nor would there be any special eminence in •xTrtpi/yiov so understood. It rather signifies the apex of the fastigium, dirufice., or tympanum of the Temple. Cf. the use of the word (TO KTfpvyiov rov tepov), also rov vital, by Hegesippus (in Euseb. ii. 23, and Routh, R.S. i. 210, 339), in his account of the martyrdom of St James. There, also, it is evidently a pointed eminence ; and it would seem that a person there standing, would be visible and audible to a large concourse of people, such as we may suppose collected in the court of the Israelites." — Wordsworth in loc. " The general opinion, that our Lord was placed on Herod's royal portico, described Jos. Ant. xv. 11, 5, is probably right. That portico overhung the ravine of Kedron from a dizzy height." — Alfordinloc. Various other suppositions have been speciously supported and illustrated. -(I.E.)