Matthew 4:6

If thou be. See on v. 3. On the surface, a failure to provide an answer to Satan’s challenge would appear to be a tacit admission on the part of Jesus that He was not the Son of God. In meeting the first temptation Jesus had proved loyal as a Son to the Father’s will. Now the tempter proposes that He prove His loyalty and faith by an act that would, allegedly, give conclusive proof of the fact.

Cast thyself down. Surely, urged Satan, such an act of faith in God would be a supreme demonstration that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. The rabbis taught that “when the king Messiah reveals himself, then he comes and stands on the roof of the holy place” (Midrash Pesiqtha Rabbathi 36 [162a], cited in Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, vol. I, p. 151). Had Jesus cast Himself down, none would have witnessed the act but Satan and the angels of God (1SG 33).

It is written. Satan misinterprets and misapplies the passage he now offers Jesus as a reason for departing from the path of duty. He manipulates the Word of God in such a way as to make it appear that it approves a sinful course of action; he twists its meaning and uses it deceitfully (cf. 2 Cor. 4:2).

Give his angels charge. Satan quotes from Ps. 91:11, 12, but omits the words “to keep thee in all thy ways.” Perhaps this was designed to obscure the fact that the protecting care of God is available to us only when we remain in ways of God’s own choosing. Satan well knew that when a man departs from the straight and narrow way he leaves God’s chosen ground and steps over onto the enchanted ground of the enemy. But Jesus refused to depart from the pathway of strict obedience to the will of the Father.