NOTES for Mat 4:1-11

What does "do not tempt the Lord your God" mean? This is a reference to chapter 6 of Deuteronomy, whose continuation is: "as you tempted Him in Massah" (Deut 6:16). Let us recall what is being spoken of here. It is about how the people of God grew hungry in the wilderness at the rock of Horeb, and Moses struck the ground with the rod and water flowed (Ex 17). "And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the complaining of the children of Israel and because they tempted the Lord, saying: Is the Lord among us, or not?" That is, to tempt the Lord means to call Him Himself into question simply because He does not immediately fulfill our desires. Or even worse, to do something in order to check whether He will fulfill what He promised in this case, because perhaps He does not exist at all. This is what it means to tempt the Lord. Now let us think in reverse about the common expression: "the Lord is tempting him." Among Christians there is a common mistake. They say that the Lord tempts us, apparently misinterpreting the words from the Lord's Prayer, "lead us not into temptation," understanding them as though God sometimes wants to lead us into temptation, sometimes does not, and we ask Him not to do this. This is a deep and very bad delusion. The apostle James warns us against it: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'God is tempting me'; for God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one, but each one is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own desire" (Jas 1:13). So God does not tempt us; let us pay Him the same in return.