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Matthew 4 uses the language of Deuteronomy 8, including references to the number forty, to describe Jesus' testing in the wilderness. By quoting Deuteronomy, Matthew connects the reference of forty days of testing with Israel’s forty years of wandering.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Deuteronomy 8:2
Septuagint
1 You shall observe to do all the commands which I charge you today, that you may live and be multiplied, and enter in and inherit the land, which the Lord your God swore to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you in the wilderness, that he might afflict you, and try you, and that the things in your heart might be made manifest, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he afflicted you and straitened you with hunger, and fed you with manna, which your fathers did not know; that he might teach you that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live. 4 Your garments did not wear out on you, your feet were not painfully hardened, look, these forty years. 5 And you shall know in your heart, that as if any man should discipline his son, so the Lord your God will discipline you.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Matthew 4:1
New Testament
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he fasted 40 days and 40 nights he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the highest point 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 lift you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Matthew 4:2 probably narrates Jesus being hungry to form a thematic association with the hunger theme in the unquoted half of Deuteronomy 8:3. Although Matthew 4 does not quote this part of Deuteronomy 8:3, there are good reasons for thinking that Matthew 4:2 alludes to it. First, Deuteronomy 8:1-5 and Matthew 4:1-3 share some identical words and a reference to the number 40. Second, the same themes are clustered together in both Deuteronomy 8 and Matt 4. Third, Deuteronomy 8:1-5 and Matt 4:1-4 describe analogous situations. Some identical words and the mention of the number 40 appear in Deuteronomy 8:1-5 and Matthew 4:1-3. The identical words include ἔρημος (“wilderness”) and υἱός (“son”). Deuteronomy 8:2 contains ἔρημος, and Matthew 4:1 uses ἔρημος. Deuteronomy 8:5 includes υἱός, and Matthew 4:3 contains υἱός. The number 40 appears in both Deuteronomy 8:4 and Matthew 4:2. Deuteronomy 8:4 mentions 40 years, and Matthew 4:2 references 40 days and 40 nights. The above details lead many scholars to conclude that the quotation of Deuteronomy 8:3 in Matt 4:4 alludes to Deuteronomy 8:1-5 ..."
Christopher Winchester, “Thematic Association in the Gospel of Matthew: Situating Exegesis in the Gospel of Matthew in Its Second Temple Context” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2017), 216.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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