Ellicott's comm: "Greek word is, to be taken as meaning a stumbling block, an impediment... it presents a suggestive contrast to the previous promise. Peter is still a stone, but it is as "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" (Isaiah 8:14; 1Peter 2:8). He is hindering, not forwarding his Master's work. The chief of the Apostles was addressed in the self-same terms as those which had been spoken to the Tempter (Matthew 4:10). It was, nothing less than a renewal of the same temptation. In this suggestion, that He might gain the crown without the cross, the Christ saw the recurrence of the temptation which had offered Him the glory of those kingdoms on condition of His drawing back from the path which the Father had appointed for Him