Luke 4:2-4

4:2 where for forty days he endured temptations ¹  from the devil. He ²  ate nothing ³  during those days, and when they were completed, ⁴  he was famished. 4:3 The devil said to him, “If ⁵  you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” ⁶  4:4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man ⁷  does not live by bread alone.’” ⁸ 

¹ 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.

² tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

³ 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.

⁴ tn The Greek word here is συντελεσθείσων (suntelesqeiswn) from the verb συντελέω (suntelew).

⁵ tn This is a first class condition: “If (and let’s assume that you are) the Son of God…”

⁶ tn Grk “say to this stone that it should become bread.”

⁹ tn Or “a person.” The Greek word ὁ ἄνθρωπος (Jo anqrwpo") is used generically for humanity. The translation “man” is used because the emphasis in Jesus’ response seems to be on his dependence on God as a man.

¹⁰ tc Most mss (A [D] Θ Ψ [0102] Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt) complete the citation with ἀλλ᾿ ἐπὶ παντὶ ῥήματι θεοῦ (ajll’ ejpi panti rJhmati qeou, “but by every word from God”), an assimilation to Matt 4:4 (which is a quotation of Deut 8:3). The shorter reading is found in א B L W 1241 pc sa. There is no good reason why scribes would omit the rest of the quotation here. The shorter reading, on both internal and external grounds, should be considered the original wording in Luke.