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MATTHEW 4:2 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 4:1Matt 4:3
“And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.”
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The forty days and forty nights explicitly echoes Moses on the mountain (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah's journey to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8) — the great figures of the law and the prophets who sustained extended fasts in moments of divine encounter. Jesus' forty-day fast identifies him with both while pointing beyond both. He was hungry — Matthew does not minimize the physical reality. The incarnation is not a pretend humanity; Jesus experiences genuine physical need, genuine vulnerability, genuine temptability. The hunger that follows forty days without food is the condition in which the first temptation arrives: use your power to address your need. The vulnerability that makes the temptation real is the same vulnerability that makes his ultimate intercession credible.

Church Fathers on Matthew 4:2

The Lord being baptized by John with water, is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be baptized by the fire of temptation. 'Then,' i.e. when the voice of the Father had been given from heaven.

Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

Whoever thou art then that after thy baptism sufferest grievous trials, be not troubled thereat; for this thou receivedst arms, to fight, not to sit idle. God does not hold all trial from us; first, that we may feel that we are become stronger; secondly, that we may not be puffed up by the greatness of the gifts we have received; thirdly, that the Devil may have experience that we have entirely renounced him; fourthly, that by it we may be made stronger; fifthly, that we may…

Chrysostom · 4th century · Hom. 13

The Devil’s snares are chiefly spread for the sanctified, because a victory over the saints is more desired than over others.

Hilary of Poitiers · 4th century
Read all 20 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 4:2 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy