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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Matthew 4:3 - 4:3
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Son of God
By its position in the sentence Son is emphatic. “If thou standest to God in the relation of Son.”
Bread (ἄπτοι)
Lit., loaves or cakes. So Wyc., loaves. These stones were perhaps those “silicious accretions,” which assume the exact shape of little loaves of bread, and which were represented in legend as the petrified fruits of the cities of the plain. By a similar fancy certain crystallizations 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 hungered, may have added force to the temptation. This resemblance may have been present to Christ's mind in his words at Mat 7:9.