Matthew 4:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

But by every word, &c.— But by every thing which the mouth of God shall ordain. Prussian Testament. The original, to which our version is agreeable, is a Hebrew expression, taken from Deuteronomy 8:3. Whatever proceedeth out of the mouth, is the same as whatever God appoints or commands. Word is not in the Hebrew, but only in the LXX, whom the evangelist has here followed. Dr. Heylin is of opinion, that the diabolical temptation did not, perhaps could not begin, till after Jesus had fasted forty days; and then, when the first fervours in the new state he was entered upon were considerably abated; when his new abilities of body and mind were greatly exhausted by so long an abstinence; when nature languished, and hunger called for the needful repair of food; then the tempter found access to him. It should be observed, that in the style of Scripture, feeding, feasting, and fasting, are applicable to the mind as well as to the body. The mind has its hunger and thirst. It feeds and ruminates on thought; and when it fails of a due supply, it palls, and sickens, and starves for want of food. Now the forlorn wilderness was as barren of what could recreate the mind, as of what could feed the body. Here Jesus sojourned, in perpetual silence and solitude, with no entertainment of sense, no secular occupation, no external objects to employ the imagination. His fast there was total; total, I mean, as to the animal part, which, wasted with long want of necessary refreshment, at last pined with hunger; and this hunger would probably be attended with dejection of spirits, or other disorders, which debilitate the mind, and lay it open to temptation. It was then the tempter came to him, and said, if, &c. So the evangelist briefly relates the substance of this first temptation; which certainly was then displayed with all the colourings of reason; and which, by way of illustration, and only to shew what might be suggested on the occasion, may be thus represented: "If you really are the Son of God, and the voice you imagine to have heard from heaven be no delusion, assert your prerogative: do not let a Son of God starve; vindicate your sonship, and justify your Father's goodness, who has not given you the miraculous powers you think yourself endowed with for nothing. If these powers are to be used, when so reasonablyas now? Can any one want them more? Can any one deserve them better than you do? Consider what you owe to yourself and your Father's glory, if you be indeed his Son. His Spirit, as you deem, led you into this inhospitable wilderness;—for what?—To perish here?—and so to frustrate all the prophesies which you conceive yourself destined to accomplish, and deprive men of the salvation you undertake to earn for them?—For your own sake, for their sake, for the sake of your Father's glory, which is so highly interested in your preservation, hearken to the just calls of nature in you: speak but the word; bid these words become bread." Jesus answered, Man, &c. The quotation is very apposite: for it is taken from Deuteronomy, where Moses, recapitulating to the Jews the hardships and temptations with which they had been exercised in the desert, the more effectually to remind them of the great lesson that he was to inculcate, says, Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee [the original here is the same word, which, in other places, is rendered, to tempt thee,] to know what was in thine heart; whether thou wouldst keep his commandments, or no: and he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna [a food before unknown], that he might make thee know, that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord, &c.; that is to say, by whatever God appoints, or by whatever way he pleases. This answer, we see, was fully to the purpose, and so decisive as not to admit of a reply; yet the adversary, though baffled, did not desist, but renewed the attack with a second temptation: whereby it should seem, that he hoped to take advantage from the total resignation wherewith Jesus confided in the divine protection, so as to drive him into some excess. See Houbigant on Deuteronomy 8:3.