Matthew 4: 1-11
The temptation of Jesus
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.
4:2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished.
4:3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
4:4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,
4:6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
4:7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory,
4:9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
4:10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
4:11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
[1] Τότε ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος πειρασθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου,
[2] καὶ νηστεύσας ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα καὶ νύκτας τεσσαράκοντα ὕστερον ἐπείνασε.
[3] καὶ προσελθὼν αὐτῷ ὁ πειράζων εἶπεν· εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, εἰπὲ ἵνα οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι ἄρτοι γένωνται.
[4] ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπε· γέγραπται, οὐκ ἐπ᾿ ἄρτῳ μόνῳ ζήσεται ἄνθρωπος, ἀλλ᾿ ἐπὶ παντὶ ρήματι ἐκπορευομένῳ διὰ στόματος Θεοῦ.
[5] Τότε παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν, καὶ ἵστησιν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ
[6] καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, βάλε σεαυτὸν κάτω· γέγραπται γὰρ ὅτι
τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ ἐντελεῖται περὶ σοῦ,
καὶ ἐπὶ χειρῶν ἀροῦσί σε,
μήποτε προσκόψῃς πρὸς λίθον τὸν πόδα σου.
[7] ἔφη αὐτῷ ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς· πάλιν γέγραπται, οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου.
[8] Πάλιν παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος εἰς ὄρος ὑψηλὸν λίαν, καὶ δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ πάσας τὰς βασιλείας τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν
[9] καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ταῦτα πάντα σοι δώσω, ἐὰν πεσὼν προσκυνήσῃς μοι.
[10] τότε λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς· ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, σατανᾶ· γέγραπται γάρ, Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου προσκυνήσεις καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις.
[11]Τότε ἀφίησιν αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄγγελοι προσῆλθον καὶ διηκόνουν αὐτῷ.
Comments
[1] Τότε: a (correlative) temporal adv. (also in cl. Gk), ‘then’. The adv. is repeated at the beginning of vv. 1, 5, 10, and 11. In v. 1, it signals a transition from the baptism account, and means ‘thereupon’, a non-classical nuance also found in vv. 5, 10, and 11. See EDNT s.v., 2.
ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος: ‘by the Spirit’. With the definite article, Πνεῦμα is a particular spirit or power; the article is ‘anaphoric’, i.e. it refers back to the Spirit mentioned in the penultimate verse of the preceding chapter (3: 16), τὸ Πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, ‘the Spirit of God’.
πειρασθῆναι: the pass. aor. infinitive of the vb πειράζω, c. acc. pers., ‘try, tempt a person, put someone to the test’, already an LXX meaning (LSJ s.v. II.1; Muraoka s.v.). The inf. here (‘to be tested’) expresses purpose, i.e. that of the Spirit. Cf. the pres. tense part. ὁ πειράζων (v. 3) and the cmpd ἐκπειράσεις (v. 7), q.v. below.
[2] νηστεύσας: aor. part. < νηστεύω, ‘I fast’ (already in Aristophanes in the religious sense); in NT the sense is religious- ascetic (EDNT s.v., 1b).
ἐπείνασε: aor. < πεινάω, ‘I hunger’. Here the aor. is ‘ingressive’, denoting entrance into a state, ‘he grew hungry’.
[3] ὁ πειράζων: the participle has become a substantive, ‘the testing one, the tester’.
ἀποκριθεὶς: aor. part. < ἀποκρίνομαι, ‘I answer’; LXX almost always and NT freq. uses the pass. aor. ἀπεκρίθην (LSJ s.v. IV. 1 &3; EDNT s.v. 1). The vb implies that the person answering is circumspectly evaluating his interlocutor’s statement or question (EDNT ibid.).
[5] παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν: παραλαμβάνω, ‘take along to some place’, c. acc., in the LXX (Muraoka s.v., 2). The vb is repeated in v. 8.
[7] οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις: fut. of ἐκπειράζω, ‘I tempt, make trial of’, Hellenistic Greek; here the fut. tense is an ‘imperative future’, with the negative οὐκ making it a prohibition. See Brooks-Winbery, NT Syntax (1979), p. 88.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 