Luke 4:5-8

4:5 Then¹ the devil² led him up³ to a high place⁴ and showed him in a flash all the kingdoms of the world. 4:6 And he⁵ said to him, “To you⁶ I will grant this whole realm⁷ – and the glory that goes along with it,⁸ for it has been relinquished⁹ to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish. 4:7 So then, if¹⁰ you will worship¹¹ me, all this will be¹² yours.” 4:8 Jesus¹³ answered him,¹⁴ “It is written, ‘You are to worship¹⁵ the Lord¹⁶ your God and serve only him.’”¹⁷

¹tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

sn The order of Luke’s temptations differs from Matthew’s at this point as numbers two and three are reversed. It is slightly more likely that Luke has made the change to put the Jerusalem temptation last, as Jerusalem is so important to Luke’s later account. The temporal markers in Matthew’s account are also slightly more specific.

²tn Grk “he.”

³tc Most mss (א¹ A [D W] Θ Ψ 0102 Ë^1,[13] 33 700 2542 Ï it) refer to Jesus being taken up “to a high mountain” (with many of these also explicitly adding “the devil”) here in parallel with Matt 4:8, but both scribal harmonization to that text and the pedigree of the witnesses for the shorter reading (א* B L 1241 pc) is the reason it should be omitted from Luke.

⁴tn “A high place” is not in the Greek text but has been supplied for clarity.

⁵tn Grk “And the devil.”

⁶sn In Greek, this phrase is in an emphatic position. In effect, the devil is tempting Jesus by saying, “Look what you can have!”

⁷tn Or “authority.” BDAG 353 s.v. ἐξουσία 6 suggests, concerning this passage, that the term means “the sphere in which the power is exercised, domain.” Cf. also Luke 22:53; 23:7; Acts 26:18; Eph 2:2.

⁸tn The addendum referring to the glory of the kingdoms of the world forms something of an afterthought, as the following pronoun (“it”) makes clear, for the singular refers to the realm itself.

⁹tn For the translation of παραδέδοται (paradedotai) see L&N 57.77. The devil is erroneously implying that God has given him such authority with the additional capability of sharing the honor.

¹⁰tn This is a third class condition: “If you worship me (and I am not saying whether you will or will not)…”

¹¹tn Or “will prostrate yourself in worship before…” The verb προσκυνέω (proskunew) can allude not only to the act of worship but the position of the worshiper. See L&N 53.56.

¹²tn One could translate this phrase “it will all be yours.” The sense is the same, but the translation given is a touch more emphatic and more likely to catch the force of the offer.

¹³tn Grk “And Jesus.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

¹⁴tc Most mss, especially the later ones (A Θ Ψ 0102 Ë¹³ Ï it), have “Get behind me, Satan!” at the beginning of the quotation. This roughly parallels Matt 4:10 (though the Lukan mss add ὀπίσω μου to read ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, σατανᾶ [{upage opisw mou, satana]); for this reason the words are suspect as a later addition to make the two accounts agree more precisely. A similar situation occurred in v. 5.

¹⁵tn Or “You will prostrate yourself in worship before…” The verb προσκυνέω (proskunew) can allude not only to the act of worship but the position of the worshiper. See L&N 53.56.

¹⁶tc Most later mss (A Θ 0102 Ï) alter the word order by moving the verb forward in the quotation. This alteration removes the emphasis from “the Lord your God” as the one to receive worship (as opposed to Satan) by moving it away from the beginning of the quotation.

sn In the form of the quotation in the Greek text found in the best mss, it is the unique sovereignty of the Lord that has the emphatic position.

¹⁷sn A quotation from Deut 6:13. The word “only” is an interpretive expansion not found in either the Hebrew or Greek (LXX) text of the OT.