Bible Strands
Luke 4:2
where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrative describes Jesus' immediate post-baptism experience in the wilderness, positioned between the Spirit's leading in Luke 4:1 and the devil's first verbal challenge in Luke 4:3.
The words — πειραζόμενος (peirazomenos) translates literally as "being tempted" or "being tested," and τεσσαράκοντα (tesserakonta) means "forty," marking the precise duration of the trial.
The thread — The forty-day fast parallels Moses' forty days and nights without food on Sinai in Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 9:9, while the temptation motif connects directly to Hebrews 4:15's claim that Jesus was tested in every way.
Why it lands — The text establishes Jesus' physical vulnerability through explicit hunger, requiring a reader to recognize the reality of his human endurance before any theological conclusions about his divine nature are drawn.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
Cross-references
- Exodus 34:28 So Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
- Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.
- Deuteronomy 9:9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
- 1 Kings 19:8 So he got up and ate and drank. And strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
- Hebrews 2:18 Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
- Deuteronomy 9:18 Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger.
- Matthew 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
- John 4:6 Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
- Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
- Exodus 24:18 Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.