And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
Parallel translations
- WEB When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
- BSB After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
- NKJV And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
- NASB And after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.
- NLT For forty days and forty nights he fasted 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
After fasting forty days and nights, Jesus is hungry. His genuine hunger shows his true humanity and the reality of the test.
Overview
The forty-day fast recalls Moses and Elijah and Israel's forty years in the wilderness, casting Jesus as fulfilling that history faithfully. His real hunger underscores that he was truly human and that the temptation that follows was a genuine trial. In weakness he will nonetheless prove perfectly obedient.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Deut 9:18And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
- Exod 34:28And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
- 1 Kgs 19:8And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
- Luke 4:2Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
- Deut 9:9When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
- Exod 24:18And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
- Deut 9:25Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
- Mark 11:12And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:
- John 4:6Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
- Deut 18:18I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
- Heb 2:14–17Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
- Matt 21:18Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.
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Christ at the center
Matthew presents Jesus as the promised King — son of David, son of Abraham — the new Moses and true Israel in whom every prophecy reaches 'that it might be fulfilled.'
How Matthew 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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