Matthew 4:1

1. Led up… into the wilderness As the preposition up indicates that the wilderness was high ground, and the circumstances of the temptation suggest the nearness of the temple, we may accept the tradition which assigns the wilderness of Judea and Mount Quarantania as the locality. This is in the mountainous region toward Jericho, within a brief distance of Jerusalem. Dr. Durbin thus describes the scene on his journey from Jerusalem to Jericho:

“After pursuing our way for an hour or two down the rugged ravine which forms the road, we turned to the left, and ascended into the desolate and blackened mountains of the ‘Wilderness of Judea,’ the scene of John the Baptist’s ministration and of our Lord’s temptation. Of all places in the world, it is naturally fittest for the centre and kingdom of Satan the destroyer; for, as Maundrell says, ‘it is a most miserable, dry, barren place, consisting of high, rocky mountains, so torn and disordered as if the earth had suffered some great convulsion, in which its very bowels had been turned outward.’ This fearful wilderness, not ten miles east of Jerusalem, has always been the abode of violence and misery. The very road on which we passed was the scene of our Lord’s parable of the Good Samaritan.

“About half way between Jerusalem and Jericho we passed the crumbling walls of a large khan, with immense cisterns. Following the rugged road, often through avenues cut in the rock, we came, by two o’clock, to the eastern edge of the wilderness which overlooks the plain of Jericho, clad in deep green verdure, caused by the fertilizing streams of the Fountain of Elisha. Beyond it, deep in the valley, and as yet invisible, flowed the Jordan, while the view beyond was closed by the dark masses of the mountains of Moab, inviting the eye of the pilgrim to select Nebo and Pisgah. I paused on the brow of the mountain, near the well-preserved remains of a Roman aqueduct, which once supplied water to the city of Jericho, and gazed upon this wide and gloomy panorama encircling the rich green plain which lay spread out far away below me. Immediately around was the dreary wilderness already described; to the right, in their deep, sunken bed, lay the still waters of the Dead Sea; far to the left, the mountains of the wilderness projected into the Jordan, and closed the plain to the north. In that direction, just above the Fountain of Elisha, rose above the rest the dark, thunder-scathed head of Mount Quarantania, which tradition assigns as the ‘exceeding high mountain’ from which Satan showed our Lord ‘all the kingdoms of this world.’ Its summit seems inaccessible; yet a little chapel is perched upon it, and its side next the Jordan is cut into caverns and chambers, in which we saw at night the flitting taper of the hermit, or of the pilgrim doing penance during Lent.”

Of the Spirit So Ezekiel 3:14: “The spirit lifted me and took me.” So also Acts 8:39: “The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip… Philip was found at Azotus.”

To be tempted Put to the test. His virtues were to be tried by a contest with his and our great adversary. The heads of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of hell must meet in contest. How vapid to reduce all this to a vision! The devil The Diabolus or Accuser. The being who accused Job, and who brings ever a charge against God’s elect. He is not the “personified principle of evil,” but a being deeply animated by the purpose of evil.

1 . We have no more right to reduce Satan and hell to figure, than we have Christ, angels, and heaven, nay, God himself. If there are good beings in the body there are also bad. So, also, if there are good bodiless spirits, there may be bad. It is no more contrary to the nature of God’s government that there should be a Satan, than that there should be a Nimrod, a Tamerlane, or a Mohammed.

2 . Though Satan is not omnipresent nor omnipotent, he may fill a vast space with his presence. We know not how much of the earth he may overshadow at the same moment. And we know not how numerous the demoniac angels who do his bidding, and through whom he tempts the sons of men.

3 . The allusions to his fall from a state of purity are too numerous and pointed to leave a doubt as to its being a doctrine of Scripture. Such are John 8:44; Jude 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4.

4 . Satan is crafty beyond measure, but very little wise. There may be depths of cunning and masses of knowledge in him, and yet many of the plainest, simplest things of redemption, Christ, and Scripture, may be utterly unintelligible to his fatuity. The simplest saint, though immeasurably outwitted by him, may be deep, beyond his comprehension, in the things of God. So the bee can build her comb with the science of a profound mathematician without being able to count three.