The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 68

yet that any word proceeding out of the mouth of Goo, nnything created by God's word and by that i;ame word commanded to be used for food, will serve the purpose. "He can eiiher," sa_ys Bishop Hall in his •Contemplations,'" sustain without bread, as he did Moses and Ehas; or with a miraculous bread, as the Israelites with manna· or send ordin_ary means miraculously, as food to his prophet by the ravens; or mir~culously multiply ordmary means, as the meal and oil to the Sareptan widow." Christ, therefore, needed not to turn stones into bread; he only needed to trust in his heavenly Father for Q seasonable and suitable supply. Hence we learn that, while bread is the staff of lifo, God's blessing is the staff of bread. W o may want bread, and yet be nourished by some other means; we may have bread, and not be satisfied. In our greatest abundance we must not think ?f living without God; in our greatest indigence we must learn to live upon God. Ordmary means of succour and support may fail or be cut off; the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no meat; yet are we to rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of our salva- tion. (d) Spirit'IJ,ll,[ life rieeds nou,-ishment suited to it. Bread, by the Divine blessing, supports the life of the body; but there is a higher style of life that needs for its sustenance more than bread, and which bread alone cannot maintain. There is the life of the soul, the life of the immortal spirit; that spiritual life depends for support on e>'ery word of God. "Thy words were found," says the prophet, "and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart;" and Job says, "I have esteemed the words of bis mouth more than my necessary food;" while the Saviour himself says, ii:: reference to the same life, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." And if we would live this truer, higher, nobler life, we " must all eat the same spiritual meat," feeding on the Word of God and following the will of God. 2. The special charade-, of the second temptation. This second temptation is an appeal to avarice or aggrandizement or covetousness. As Mcses saw the land of promise from the top of Pisgah, so Satan brings the Saviour to "an exceeding high mountain." A mountain is still pointed out as the mount of the temptation. Its name is Quarantane., and its height nearly two thousand feet. "It is distinguished," says Kitto, " for its sere and desolate aspect even in this gloomy region of savage and dreary sights." From its summit Satan shows him "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Whether by "world" is to be understood the Holy Land, then divided into several petty principalities; or the Roman empire, comprising many conquered kingdoms as its provinces; or the world in its widest sense, we stop not to inquire. Neither do we attempt to explain what power of optics commanded such a prospect, or how the horizon widened and widened till the world, with its po!itical divisions as well as physical features, spread out, before the two solitary spectators on yon mountain-top, like an unfolded chart; or how especially all this was accomplished in a moment or second (literally, point) of time. The Scripture states the fact, and we believe it; the h~w of it we are not curioUB to discover, nor do we think it necessary to define. Some thmk the whole subjective ; we take the whole to be objective. Milton, it is true, speaks of the specular mount, and amplifies the scene descried from it, as a poet and a scholar ; and yet there is good reason ro believe that his realistic interpretation is in accordance with the Saripture representation, as he sings- " Here thou behold'st Assyria, and her empire's ancient bounds, Araxcs and the Caspian Jake; thence on As far as Indus east, Euphrates west, And oft beyond, to south the Persian bay, And inaccessible, the Arabian drouth." (1) .Attempt to realize the stupendous spectacle. The imaginings of the poet had then foundations in fact. Looking to the right, they saw the cities and countries peopled by the numerous children of the East-the once powerful empire of Persia, the equally powerful and still more ancient Babylonia, the distant India, and the remote Chinese. Looking northward, they saw the nomadic hordes of Scythia stretching far away towards the frozen arctic regions. Westward they saw the many provinces conquered by Roman valour and then subject to Roman rule.. t.ha annny shores and isles of Greece, the amalga• CB, I. 1-45.j ·nm GOSPEL ACCOilDING TO ST. MA.HK. 65