The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 114

So.to.n I" (ver. 10) seems conclnsive. At any 11, H is much Iese definite, and paasa"'cs ro.te, for St Matthew's aim in this Gospel the in. Ezekiel, e.g. iii. 12-H, interpret th;m. temptation tho.t he places third is the crncial selves by Ezek. i. 21. To St. Matthew him- self the Personality of the Holy Ghost must, one; the trne King will not take an irregnlar in the light of eh. xxviii. 19, have been an method of acquiring sovereignty. assured fact. To be tempted of the devil. Ver. 1.-Then; temporal. Mo.rk, "o.nd So Luke; i.e. the great calumniator, him ebaightway." Immediately after the descent whose characteristic is false accusation; e.~. of the Holy Ghost upon him. Was led np against men (Rev. xii. 10-12); against God • . . into the wilderness. Up (Matthew (Gen. iii. 1-5). Here chiefly in the latter only); from the Jordan valley into the higher aspect. Each of the three temptations, and country round (cf. Josh. xvi. 1), in this case they are typical of all temptations, is into the desert (eh. iii. 1). There is nothing primarily a calumniation of God and his told us by which we may identify the plare, methods. Mark has "of Satan," a Hebrew but e.s the scene of the temptation must have word equivalent to "adversary," which the been near the scene of the baptism, namely, LXX. nearly always renders by o,a,Bcf,\,\o, on the west side of Jordan (eh. ill. 1, note), ( compare also Numb. xxii. 22, 32). Probably it may be presumed that the temptation by the time of the LXX. the idea of the evil was on the west side also. The sharp spirit accusing as in a law-court, was more limestone peak (Godet) known since the prominent than the earlier thought of him Crusades as Quara.ntana, "from the quaran- as an adversary. Spiritual resistance bv tain, or forty days of fasting" (Trench, the evil spirit to all good is a less-de,elopeJ 'Studies,' p. 6), may, perhaps, have been the thought than his traducing God to man, actual spot. The only important objection and, after some success obtained, traducing to this is that directly after the tempto.tion man to God. Evil mo.y resist good; it may (as seems most probable) he comes to John also acoase both God and those made after in "Bethany beyond Jordan," John i 28 the likeness of God. (not necessarily to be identified with Ver. 2.-And when he had fasted . . . hs "Betho.bara" of the Received Text; its was afterwards an hungred. He was so locality is quite unknown). If he went absorbed in prayer that it was only after east of Jordan after the temptation, he his six weeks' meditation that he felt the would still be on one of the great roads to need of food. But though his humanity Galileo (Luke ix. 52, etc.). '£he conjecture had been elevo.ted e.nd his spiritual sense that the fasting and temptation took place quickened by this o.t the time almost un- on Sinai is suggested by the analogy of conscious fast, it left him physically prostrate Moses and Elijah, but by absolutely nothing and completely exposed to attack. "In in the Gospels. Led up of the Spirit into the certain morbid conditions, which invohe o. wilderness; Mark, "the Spirit driveth him more or less entire abstinence from food, o. forth;" Luke, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, period of six weeks generally brings about returned from the Jordan, and was led in a crisfa, after which the demand for nouris!J- the Spirit in the wilderness" (with a leading ment is renewed with extreme urgency. that lasted throughout the temptation, 1,-y•-ro The ex!Jausted body becomes a prey to a ... Iv . .. Iv ... 1mpa(&µ.evos). He wo.s no deathly sinking. Such, d11ublless, was tho doubt himself inclined to go apart into the condition of Jesus; ho felt himself dying. desert that he might meditate uninter- It was the moment the tempter hlltl waited ruptedly upon the assurance just given, for to make his decisive assault" (Goclet). am! the momentous issues involved in his Luke (cf. Mark?) probably (though not iu baptism; but the Holy Spirit had also his the Revised Version) represents the temp- own purposes with him. The Holy Spirit tation o.s continuous during the wholo cannot, indeed, tempt, but he can o.nd period. Of this Matthew says nothing, does lead us into circumstances where but only describes the final scenes, when temptation is permitted, that we may there- the might of the tempter was felt to tile by be proved and disciplined for future uttermost, and his defont wo.s most crucial. work. In Clirist'e case the temptation wo.s Forty. Trench's remark is well worth an important po.rt of that moral suffering by study: "On a close e::mmination we note it to which ho lel\med full obedience (Heb. v. 8). be everywhere there [i.e. in Holy Scripture] Notice tlrnt even ii" the expression in eh. iii. the number or signl\ture of penalty, of I<i," lho Spirit of God descending," does not 11ffliction, of the coufessiou, or the punish- iu itself go beyond the expressions of Jewish ment, of sin" (' Studies,' p. 14). Nights. tel\chers who deny his Personality, it would _The mention of nights as well as days brings ho hard to find so personal an action 11s is • out more vividly the contiuuauco o.n,l the implied by the words, ••Jesus was led up completeness of the abstinence (cf Gen. vii. of the Spirit," attributed to the Spirit in 4, 12 [17, LXX.]; Exo,l. xx.iv. 18; Deut. ix., oon-Christi11n writings. For Isa. lxiii. 10, especially 18 ; 1 Kings xix. 8)..  104 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [011. 1v, 1-26.