John Lightfoot on Luke 4:1
Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae. Browse this work.
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Luke4:1
[Was led by the Spirit.] In St. Matthew it is, was led up of the Spirit. By which I would suppose our Saviour caught up by the Holy Spirit into the air, and so carried into the wilderness. The reasons of this conjecture are, I. Because we read of the like thing done to Philip, Acts 8:39,40. The same also is supposed concerning Elijah, 1 Kings 18:12; 2 Kings 2:16. II. It is probable the devil also might snatch Jesus up into the air, having this occasion to pretend himself no other than the Holy Ghost, who had caught him up and brought him already into the wilderness: and under this notion he might require that worship from him, as if he himself was indeed the Holy Ghost. III. We must not pass by the method which St. Luke takes in describing the order of the temptations, somewhat different from that of St. Matthew. The temptation upon the pinnacle of the Temple is mentioned by St. Matthew, and that most truly, the second in order: but in St. Luke it is reckoned the third; adding, that "when the devil had ended all his temptation, he departed from him for a season." But now, according to St. Luke, how did Christ get down from the pinnacle again? He tells us, that he was carried up thither by the devil, and there (according to his method in the story) the temptation was ended: how then did Christ get down again? Observe but what follows; Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and then join the stories as they are joined in St. Luke: the devil set him on the pinnacle of the Temple, and there urgeth him to cast himself down; but when he could not persuade him, he leaves him standing on the pinnacle, and all the temptation was ended; and Jesus, by the power of the Spirit returned into Galilee. May we not suppose that the evangelist would by this give us to understand, that Christ, after the temptation was ended, was carried through the air by the Holy Ghost into Galilee, as he had been caught up before by him, and been brought into the wilderness, yea, and under that pretence [or upon that occasion], had been snatched up by the devil himself to the pinnacle of the Temple, and to a very high mountain?
John Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae, Luke 4:1. Public domain.
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