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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Luke 4:7 - 4:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Wilt worship before me (proskunēsēis enōpion emou). Mat 4:9 has it more bluntly “worship me.” That is what it really comes to, though in Luke the matter is more delicately put. It is a condition of the third class (ean and the subjunctive). Luke has it “thou therefore if” (su oun ean), in a very emphatic and subtle way. It is the ingressive aorist (proskunēsēis), just bow the knee once up here in my presence. The temptation was for Jesus to admit Satan’s authority by this act of prostration (fall down and worship), a recognition of authority rather than of personal merit.
It shall all be thine (estai sou pāsa). Satan offers to turn over all the keys of world power to Jesus. It was a tremendous grand-stand play, but Jesus saw at once that in that case he would be the agent of Satan in the rule of the world by bargain and graft instead of the Son of God by nature and world ruler by conquest over Satan. The heart of Satan’s program is here laid bare. Jesus here rejected the Jewish idea of the Messiah as an earthly ruler merely. “He rejects Satan as an ally, and thereby has him as an implacable enemy” (Plummer.)