4:1 Then 1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River 2 and was led by the Spirit 3 in 4 the wilderness, 5 4:2 where for forty days he endured temptations 6 from the devil. He 7 ate nothing 8 during those days, and when they were completed, 9 he was famished.
1 tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “then” to indicate continuity with the previous topic.
2 tn “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity.
3 sn The double mention of the Spirit in this verse makes it clear that the temptation was neither the fault of Jesus nor an accident.
4 tc Most
5 tn Or “desert.”
6 tn Grk “in the desert, for forty days being tempted.” The participle πειραζόμενος (peirazomeno") has been translated as an adverbial clause in English to avoid a run-on sentence with a second “and.” Here the present participle suggests a period of forty days of testing. Three samples of the end of the testing are given in the following verses.
7 tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
8 sn The reference to Jesus eating nothing could well be an idiom meaning that he ate only what the desert provided; see Exod 34:28. A desert fast simply meant eating only what one could obtain in the desert. The parallel in Matt 4:2 speaks only of Jesus fasting.
9 tn The Greek word here is συντελεσθείσων (suntelesqeiswn) from the verb συντελέω (suntelew).