πτερύγιον

From the study of Matthew 4:5

Range of meaning

A diminutive of pteryx ('wing'): 'little wing'. In Greek generally it can mean a fin, the flap or edge of a garment, the tip or end of something, or a projecting part of a structure. BDAG gives 'tip, end, edge, pinnacle, summit' and notes that the exact architectural feature at the temple can't be identified with certainty.

Against the English

'Pinnacle' (BSB, KJV, ESV, NASB, WEB) comes through the Latin Vulgate's pinnaculum. Today 'pinnacle' suggests a pointed spire or steeple top, a spot nobody could stand on comfortably. NIV, NLT and NET say 'the highest point', which is safer but drops the 'wing' image. The Greek suggests something that juts out sideways, like a wing, from the main structure.

How it drifted

Latin pinnaculum (from pinna, 'feather, wing, battlement') was a reasonable match in Jerome's day: a winglike projection or battlement. As 'pinnacle' passed into English, it came to mean a slender pointed turret on Gothic church buildings. So the English word now calls up a spire, which Herod's temple did not have.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament it is used for the edge or fringe of a garment (Ruth 3:9 LXX; Numbers 15:38 LXX, the corners where tassels hang), for fins (Leviticus 11:9–12 LXX), and in Theodotion's Daniel 9:27 the 'wing' of abominations is linked to the temple. Hegesippus (2nd century, quoted by Eusebius, Church History 2.23.11) says James the brother of Jesus was stood 'on the pterygion of the temple' and thrown down from it. That shows Christians later understood it as a known high spot with a lethal drop. Josephus (Antiquities 15.411–412) describes the Royal Portico on the south side of Herod's temple mount: looking down from its top into the ravine below was enough to make a person dizzy.