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Repulsed, but not routed, the devil seeks a new line of attack:
v. 5. Then the devil taketh Him up into the Holy City, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the Temple,
v. 6a. and saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down.
His attempt to produce distrust in God's ability to sustain life under unusual conditions having failed, Satan tries to plant the seed of self-glorification and presumption in the heart of Jesus. He shows greater boldness, taking the Lord to himself as his companion, practically seizing hold of Him, and carrying Him along to Jerusalem, called by the evangelist, as with affection, the Holy City. Here he set Him on the pinnacle of the Temple. This refers either to the southwest corner of the Temple court, where Herod had erected a gallery of great height, from whose dizzy top the depth of the Kidron Valley below was intensified to the eye, in which case the dangerousness of a leap would have given added force to the devil's urging; or Matthew has in mind the high roof of the Most Holy Place, the highest elevation of the Temple proper. A daring jump, an ostentatious miracle it would have been if Jesus, in the presence of the assembled multitude, had cast Himself down from this prominent point and reached the ground unharmed. By yielding to the devil at this suggestion, He might in an hour have gained more followers than the entire number of disciples amounted to whom He gathered by the laborious method of teaching.
Having been rendered cautious by his first experience, the enemy determined to ward off a second quotation from Scriptures by quoting a passage in his own favor:
v. 6.. for it is written, 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 devil truly can quote Scriptures to his purpose, in the manner peculiar to him, with the omission of an essential part. For in the text referred to, Psa_91:11-12, the words, "To keep Thee in all Thy ways," are indispensable for a correct interpretation. It is not in the ways of a man's own choosing that the protecting hand of God is assured him, but in the ways which agree with the rational order and the laws of the universe.