Literally a wing; probably some part of the battlements on the outer wall of the temple, perhaps of Solomon's porch, accessible by stairs, Mt 4:5-6. Josephus describes a gallery constructed by Herod to overhang the deep valley of the Kidron, and says that the beholder on looking down from it would become dizzy. See TEMPTATION.

a little wing, (Mt 4:5; Lu 4:9). On the southern side of the temple court was a range of porches or cloisters forming three arcades. At the south-eastern corner the roof of this cloister was some 300 feet above the Kidron valley. The pinnacle, some parapet or wing-like projection, was above this roof, and hence at a great height, probably 350 feet or more above the valley.

Mt 4:5, "the pinnacle of the temple," the summit of the southern portico, rising 400 cubits above the valley of Jehoshaphat (Josephus Ant. 15:11, section 5, 20:9, section 7). Tregelles translated Da 9:27, "upon the wing (kenaph) of abominations shall be that which causeth desolation," namely, an idol set up on a wing or pinnacle of the temple by antichrist, who covenants with the restored Jews for the last of the 70 weeks of years (Joh 5:43) and breaks the covenant in the midst of the week, causing the daily sacrifices to cease. The pinnacle of the temple restored may be the scene of Satan's tempting Israel by antichrist as it was of his tempting Jesus. James the Lord's brother was precipitated from the pinnacle (Eusebius II E. 2:23).

This word has been adopted by our English Version from the Vulgate of Mt 4:5 (pinnaculum) to indicate the spot within the Temple enclosure from which the devil tempted our Lord to cast Himself down. The precise nature and location of 'the pinnacle of the temple' (Mt. l.c., Lu 4:9 [both RV), however, are nowhere indicated. The context and the use of the word usually employed for the whole complex of buildings as opposed to that which denotes the Temple proper (see plan in art. Temple,

The word ????????? has the article, and refers to some elevated part of the temple that is now unknown. Mt 4:5; Lu 4:9.

(of the temple),

Mt 4:5; Lu 4:9

The Greek word ought to be rendered not a pinnacle, but the pinnacle. The only part of the temple which answered to the modern sense of pinnacle was the golden spikes erected on the roof to prevent birds from settling there. Perhaps the word means the battlement ordered by law to be added to every roof. (According to Alford it was the roof of Herod's royal portico of the temple,"which overhung the ravine of Kedron from a dizzy height" --600 or 700 feet.-ED.)