Bible Strands
Matthew 4:2
After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus stands in the wilderness after the Spirit led Him there, having just completed a prolonged fast immediately before the devil approaches to test Him.
The words — The Greek participle νηστεύσας (nēsteusas) renders "having fasted," paired with ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα καὶ νύκτας τεσσαράκοντα (hēmeras tesserakonta kai nuktas tesserakonta) for "forty days and forty nights." The adverb ὕστερον (husteron) signals that the hunger follows this specific period.
The thread — This duration mirrors Moses’ forty days without bread or water on Sinai (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18) and Elijah’s forty-day trek to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).
Why it lands — The text records Jesus’ physical hunger to establish the concrete conditions preceding the devil’s verbal challenge. It asks the reader to acknowledge that His divine mission proceeds through genuine human vulnerability rather than the suspension of it.
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
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
Cross-references
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Deuteronomy 9:25 So I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said He would destroy you.
- Deuteronomy 18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.
- Mark 11:12 The next day, when they had left Bethany, Jesus 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.