Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
(feather, edge). Not a pinnacle, or summit, but the pinnacle, or wing, of the temple (Matt. 4:5; Luke 4:9).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
The word πτερύγιον has the article, and refers to some elevated part of the temple that is now unknown (Matt. 4:5; Luke 4:9).
Strong’s Dictionary of Greek Words:
Transliteration:
pterugion
Meaning:
neuter of a presumed derivative of 4420; a winglet, i.e. (figuratively) extremity (top corner)
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Matthew 4:5. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple.
See also Luke 4:9.
This is commonly supposed to have been the summit of the royal gallery built by Herod within the area of the temple building’s on the edge of the Kedron valley. Josephus says of it: “This cloister deserves to be mentioned better than any other under the sun; for, while the valley was very deep, and its bottom could not be seen if you looked from above into the depth, this farther vastly high elevation of the cloister stood upon that height, insomuch that if any one looked down from the top of the battlements, or down both those altitudes, he would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth” (Antiquities, Book 15, chap. 11, § 5). The extreme distance from the top of the battlement to the bottom of the valley is supposed to have been about seven hundred feet. See also note on Matthew 24:1 (#704).
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