where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.
Parallel translations
- WEB for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry.
- KJV Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
- NKJV being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
- NASB for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.
- NLT where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
For forty days Jesus fasts and is tempted by the devil, ending hungry. He faces real temptation in genuine human weakness.
Overview
The forty days recall Israel's forty years in the wilderness and Moses' fasts, casting Jesus as the faithful Son retracing that path. His hunger shows the reality of His humanity and the genuineness of the temptation. Yet unlike Israel, He will not fail, qualifying Him to be our sympathetic and sinless Savior.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Exod 34:28So 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.
- Heb 4:15For 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.
- Heb 2:18Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.
- Deut 9:9When 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 Kgs 19:8So 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.
- John 4:6Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
- Matt 4:2After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
- Deut 9:18Then 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.
- 1 Sam 17:16For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening to take his stand.
- Esth 4:16“Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, and I and my maidens will fast as you do. After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!”
- Gen 3:15And 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.”
- Matt 21:18In the morning, as Jesus was returning to the city, He was hungry.
- Deut 9:25So I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said He would destroy you.
- Jonah 3:7Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let no man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink.
- Exod 24:18Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
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Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 4:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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