37. It cannot be regarded as certain, that the πτερυγιον του ιερου was, as commentators
generally suppose, the Tower at the southeastern angle of the Temple Cloisters, where the
Royal (southern) and Solomon's (the eastern) Porch met, and whence the view into the
Kedron Valley beneath was to the stupen dous depth of 450 feet. Would this angle be
called 'a wing' (πτερυγιον)? Nor can I agree with Delitzsch, that it was the 'roof' of the
Sanctuary, where indeed there would scarcely have been standing-room. It certainly
formed the watch-post of the Priest. Possibly it may have been the extreme corner of the
'wing-like' porch, or ulam, which led into the Sanctuary. Thence a Priest could easily
have communicated with his brethren in the court beneath. To this there is, however, the
objection that in that case it should have been τουναου . At p. 244, the ordinary view of
this locality has been taken.
38. Comp. 'The Temple, its Ministry and Services,' p. 132.
39. Bengel: 'Scriptura per Scripturam interpretanda et concilianda.' This is also a
Rabbinic canon. The Rabbis frequently insist on the duty of not exposing oneself to
danger, in presumptuous expectation of miraculous deliverance. It is a curious saying: Do
not stand over against an ox when he comes from the fodder; Satan jumps out from
between his horns. (Pes. 112 b.) David had been presumptuous in Ps. xxvi. 2 - and failed.
(Sanh. 107 a.) But the most apt illustration is this: On one occasion the child of a Rabbi
was asked by R. Jochanan to quote a verse. The child quoted Deut. xiv. 22, at the same
time propounding the question, why the second clause virtually repeated the first. The
Rabbi replied, 'To teach us that the giving of tithes maketh rich.' 'How do you know it?'
asked the child. 'By experience,' answered the Rabbi. 'But,' said the child, 'such
experiment is not lawful, since we are not to tempt the Lord our God.' (See the very
curious book of Rabbi So oweyczgk , Die Bibel, d. Talm. u. d. Evang. p. 132.).
To submit to the Will of God! But is not this to acknowledge His authority, and the order
and disposition which He has made of all things? Once more the scene changes. They
have turned their back upon Jerusalem and the Temple. Behind are also all popular
prejudices, narrow nationalism, and limitations. They no longer breathe the stifled air,
thick with the perfume of incense. They have taken their flight into God's wide world.
There they stand on the top of some very high mountain. It is in the full blaze of sunlight
that He now gazes upon a wondrous scene. Before Him rise, from out the cloud - land at
the edge of the horizon, forms, figures, scenes -- come words, sounds, harmonies. The
world in all its glory, beauty, strength, majesty, is unveiled. Its work, its might, its
greatness, its art, its thought, emerge into clear view. And still the horizon seems to
widen as He gazes; and more and more, and beyond it still more and still brighter
appears. It is a world quite other than that which the retiring Son of the retired Nazareth-
home had ever seen, could ever have imagined, that opens its enlarging wonders. To us in
the circumstances the temptation, which at first sight seems, so to speak, the clumsiest,
would have been well nigh irresistible. In measure as our intellect was enlarged, our heart
attuned to this world - melody, we would have gazed with bewitched wonderment on that
sight, surrendered ourselves to the harmony of those sounds, and quenched the thirst of
our soul with maddening draught. But passively sublime as it must have appeared to the
Perfect Man, the God-Man - and to Him far more than to us from His infinitely deeper
appreciation of, and wider sympathy with the good, and true, and the beautiful - He had
already overcome. It was, indeed, not 'worship,' but homage which the Evil One claimed
from Jesus, and that on the truly stated and apparently rational ground, that, in its present
state, all this world 'was delivered' unto him, and he exercised the power of giving it to