Luke 4:2-3

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 

[4:2]  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.

[4:2]  ² tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[4:2]  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.

[4:2]  ⁴ tn The Greek word here is συντελεσθείσων (suntelesqeiswn) from the verb συντελέω (suntelew).

[4:3]  ⁵ tn This is a first class condition: “If (and let’s assume that you are) the Son of God…”

[4:3]  ⁶ tn Grk “say to this stone that it should become bread.”