What Does Matthew 4:10 Mean?

(10) Get thee hence, Satan.—Once more the answer to the Tempter was found in the words of the *Tephillim* and the lessons of childhood. No evidence of power could change the eternal laws of duty. There came to the Son of Man the old command, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,” as an oracle from heaven, and this, rather than an attempt to refute the claim of sovereignty, was that on which He took His stand. Others, dealing with the same temptation, as the writers of the Book of Job and of Psalms 73, have discussed the question of the apparent triumph of evil in the world’s history, and have pointed to its ultimate downfall, to the sure though slow retribution which even that history records, to the redress of the anomalies of this life in a life beyond the grave. Here we have a truer and simpler answer. Even though they cannot solve the problem, the true wisdom of men who follow in the footsteps of Christ is to recognise that their allegiance is due to God and to Him only. Here, once more, the truth thus affirmed reappears later on. When the chief of the Apostles sought to turn his Master from the appointed path of suffering, he was met, as renewing the same form of temptation which had been thus resisted, with the self-same words. Even Peter had to hear himself rebuked with “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). The use of the formula here, for the first time in the conflict, is significant as implying that in the previous temptations Evil had presented itself in disguise, making sins of distrust appear as acts of faith, while now it showed itself in its naked and absolute antagonism to the divine will.