Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. 3 The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” 4 He said in reply, “It is written: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’” 8 Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, 9 and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” 10 At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’” 11 Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.
Matthew places Jesus’ testing immediately after the baptism, where the Father’s voice identifies Him as the beloved Son. The devil’s first line, “If you are the Son of God" targets that identity. The question being forced is not whether Jesus is God’s Son, but what kind of Son He will be in practice: one who remains obedient in trust, or one who acts independently and turns sonship into self-directed power.
Matthew’s account is shaped by Israel’s wilderness story, and the parallel is deliberate. Israel was called God’s “son,” passed through the waters, and then endured a long season of testing in the desert. Jesus has just passed through the waters of the Jordan, is identified as God’s Son, and then undergoes testing in the desert that echoes Israel’s forty years through forty days and forty nights. That is why Jesus’ three replies are drawn from Deuteronomy, from the part of the book that reflects on Israel’s wilderness experience (Deut. 6-8). Jesus answers from the Scriptures that warned Israel against disobedience, forgetfulness, and false worship in the desert. In this way, Jesus is shown as reliving Israel’s trial faithfully, where Israel repeatedly failed.
The first test comes after the fast, when Jesus is hungry. The temptation is presented as a push to use power to satisfy immediate need by turning stones into bread. The force of the moment is not simply hunger but whether the Son will act apart from the Father’s will and make necessity the controlling principle. Jesus’ reply from Deut. 8:3 gives the correction: life does not finally rest on bread, but on God’s word and God’s provision. The scene echoes Israel’s hunger and the manna in the wilderness, so that the deeper issue is trustful dependence rather than self-directed grasping.
The second test shifts to the holy city. The devil now quotes Scripture, citing Psalm 91, as if faith means forcing God’s protection through a public act of presumption. Both the devil and Jesus appeal to what is “written,” but Scripture is being used in opposite ways. The psalm is meant to encourage trust in God’s care, not to invite reckless behavior that tests God. Jesus answers with Deut. 6:16, refusing to “test” God, and the reply blocks the twisting of Scripture into a tool for spiritual manipulation.
The third test is the most direct. The devil offers “all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence” in exchange for worship. The “glory” of the kingdoms can be heard as outward splendor, wealth, and power, and the temptation is to prefer these goods over covenant fidelity to God. This echoes Israel’s recurring temptation toward false worship, including the wilderness idolatry that followed deliverance. Jesus answers from Deut. 6:13 that worship and service belong to God alone. In this light, the scene also points forward within Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus refuses to grasp authority by compromise, and later, after His obedient path is completed, He declares on a mountain in Galilee that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt. 28:18). Authority is received from the Father in the Father’s way, not seized through temptation and the worship of Satan.
The testing in the desert also fits the larger shape of Matthew’s Gospel. The strategy behind the temptations is not only to entice wrongdoing, but to redirect Jesus toward an earthly kind of mission and away from the Father’s path that will include suffering and death. This same pressure reappears later when Jesus is urged to reject that path and is sharply corrected (Mt. 16:21-23). The desert testing, therefore, anticipates later attempts to redefine Jesus’ mission in a way that avoids the cost of obedience.
The tradition also offers a doctrinal clarification that helps readers hear the narrative rightly. Jesus is not portrayed as fluctuating between sin and virtue as though His identity were uncertain. Because Christ is a divine Person, He could not have sinned at any point in His earthly life, and His temptations come from the devil’s external suggestions rather than from the interior tug of disordered desire that fallen humanity experiences (cf. Jas. 1:13-15; 1 Jn. 3:5). The narrative shows real testing, and it shows faithful obedience expressed in a steady reliance on God’s word.
The episode closes with the devil leaving and angels ministering to Jesus. This confirms that the path of trust is not empty. Jesus does not force the Father’s hand, and He does not accept a shortcut to authority. He remains within the Father’s will, and the Father’s care is shown at the end of the testing.
Lord Jesus, form in me a steady trust in the Father, and teach me to answer temptation with the truth of God’s word. Amen.
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Sources and References
- The Holy Bible, New American Bible, Revised Edition (2011), including NABRE notes on Mt. 4:1-11.
- The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, pp. 12-13.
- Faculty of the University of Navarre, The Navarre Bible: St. Matthew (Four Courts/Scepter), commentary on Mt. 4:1-11.
- José Enrique Aguilar Chiu et al., eds., The Paulist Biblical Commentary (Paulist Press, 2018), commentary on Mt. 4:1-11.
- Raymond E. Brown et al., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice Hall, 1990), commentary on Mt. 4:1-11 (par. 19).
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