Then the devil taketh him up
This was done, not in a visionary way, but really and truly:
Satan, by divine permission, and with the consent of Christ,
which shows his great humiliation and condescension, had power
over his body, to move it from place to place; in some such like
manner as the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, ( Acts 8:39 ) he took him
up, raised him above ground, and carried him through the air,
"into, the holy city": this was Jerusalem; for Luke expressly
says,
he brought him to Jerusalem,
( Luke 4:9 ) called
so, because of the presence, worship, and service of God, which
had been in it, though then in a great measure gone; and
according to the common notions of the Jews, who say F2
Jerusalem was more holy than any other cities in the land, and
that because of the Shekinah. The inscription on one side of
their shekels was (vdqh rye
Mlvwry) , "Jerusalem, the holy city" {c}. Satan frequents
all sorts of places; men are no where free from his temptations;
Christ himself was not in the holy city, no nor in the holy
temple; hither also he had him,
and setteth him upon a pinnacle,
or "wing of the temple". In this place F4 the
Jews set James, the brother of Christ, and from it cast him down
headlong: this was the (akron) "the summit", or "top" of it; and intends
either the roof encompassed with battlements, to keep persons
from falling off; or the top of the porch before the temple,
which was 120 cubits high; or the top of the royal gallery, built
by Herod, which was of such an height, that if a man looked down
from it, he soon became dizzy F5. The view Satan had in
setting him here appears in the next verse.