Matthew 4
Encyclopedia
Matthew 4 is the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew
in the New Testament
. It contains two quite distinct sections. The first half, to verse eleven
is Matthew's account for the Temptation of Christ by Satan
. The second section deals with Jesus' first public preaching and the gathering of his first disciples.
with food to relieve Jesus' fast, in 4:6
with testing God, and in 4:9
with control of all the kingdoms of the earth.
There are a number of theories for this verse. One is that the three temptations show Jesus rejecting various visions of the Messiah. In the first temptation he shows that he will not be an economic messiah who will use his powers to feed the world's hungry. In the second that he will not be a miracle worker who puts on great spectacles, and the third that he will not be a political saviour but rather a spiritual one. Many scholars today reject this view. A popular theory today is that Jesus is demonstrating that he will not fail where the people of Israel did. There are several references to the period after the Exodus
and this is the section of the scripture Jesus' draws his quotes from. In that section the Israelites anger God by testing him and they soon compromise their principles for political power, mistakes that Jesus does not make.
In the Gospel of Mark
, chapter 1, the temptation narrative takes only two verses. Luke is quite similar to Matthew with only somewhat different wording and with the order of the second and third temptations reversed. It is thus widely believed that much of this section in Matthew came from Q. Schweizer notes that Q likely contained little except the actual dialogue, as the extra information is quite different in the two gospels. Hill feels that Mark is written in a manner that assumes his audience is already familiar with the temptation narrative, so this dialogue may have been widely known by the early Christians and thus not necessarily in Q.
Scholars generally consider Matthew's account to be more likely to be the original arrangement, however Luke's version became more popular in the tradition. The temptation scene related here has inspired a number of works of literature. It is briefly recounted in Paradise Lost
and is retold in great detail and expanded upon in Paradise Regained
. It also is an important inspiration for The Brothers Karamazov
and Murder in the Cathedral
. The book and film The Last Temptation of Christ
also expands upon Christ being tempted by Satan.
that begins immediately after this chapter. This section introduces Jesus' two main interlocutors. Verses 18
to 22
describe the calling of the first four fishermen, who become his first disciples: Simon Peter, Andrew
, James, and John
. The disciples abandon possessions and family to be what Jesus calls in 4:19
"fishers of men." The last three verses introduce the crowds that Jesus addresses. The last verses also serve as a summary of Jesus' ministry outlining the three forms it takes: teaching, preaching, and healing.
1
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
12
Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;
13
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:
14That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
15The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles;
16
The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.
17
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
18
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
21
And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
22
And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
23
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24
And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
25
And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. It contains two quite distinct sections. The first half, to verse eleven
Matthew 4:11
Matthew 4:11 is the eleventh verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rebuffed Satan's third temptation and order him away...
is Matthew's account for the Temptation of Christ by Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
. The second section deals with Jesus' first public preaching and the gathering of his first disciples.
Temptation of Christ
The section of this chapter dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan is unquestionably the best known and most studied portion. Satan tempts him three times: in 4:3Matthew 4:3
Matthew 4:3 is the third verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse opens the section in Matthew dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan...
with food to relieve Jesus' fast, in 4:6
Matthew 4:6
Matthew 4:6 is the sixth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rebuffed Satan's first temptation in this verse the devil presents him with the second one while the pair stands on the pinnacle of the Temple of Jerusalem.In the King James Version of...
with testing God, and in 4:9
Matthew 4:9
Matthew 4:9 is the ninth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It is part of the Temptation of Christ narrative. Jesus has rebuffed two earlier temptations by Satan. The devil has thus transported Jesus to the top of a great mountain and shown him all the...
with control of all the kingdoms of the earth.
There are a number of theories for this verse. One is that the three temptations show Jesus rejecting various visions of the Messiah. In the first temptation he shows that he will not be an economic messiah who will use his powers to feed the world's hungry. In the second that he will not be a miracle worker who puts on great spectacles, and the third that he will not be a political saviour but rather a spiritual one. Many scholars today reject this view. A popular theory today is that Jesus is demonstrating that he will not fail where the people of Israel did. There are several references to the period after the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
and this is the section of the scripture Jesus' draws his quotes from. In that section the Israelites anger God by testing him and they soon compromise their principles for political power, mistakes that Jesus does not make.
In the Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
, chapter 1, the temptation narrative takes only two verses. Luke is quite similar to Matthew with only somewhat different wording and with the order of the second and third temptations reversed. It is thus widely believed that much of this section in Matthew came from Q. Schweizer notes that Q likely contained little except the actual dialogue, as the extra information is quite different in the two gospels. Hill feels that Mark is written in a manner that assumes his audience is already familiar with the temptation narrative, so this dialogue may have been widely known by the early Christians and thus not necessarily in Q.
Scholars generally consider Matthew's account to be more likely to be the original arrangement, however Luke's version became more popular in the tradition. The temptation scene related here has inspired a number of works of literature. It is briefly recounted in Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
and is retold in great detail and expanded upon in Paradise Regained
Paradise Regained
Paradise Regained is a poem by the English poet John Milton, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem Paradise Lost, with which it shares similar theological themes...
. It also is an important inspiration for The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880...
and Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, first performed in 1935...
. The book and film The Last Temptation of Christ
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Last Temptation of Christ is a novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in 1953. It was first published in English in 1960. It follows the life of Jesus Christ from his perspective...
also expands upon Christ being tempted by Satan.
Beginning of the ministry
The second half of this chapter is generally seen as the introduction to the ministry of Jesus that will take up the next several chapters of the Gospel and in the Sermon on the MountSermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings and teachings of Jesus, which emphasizes his moral teaching found in the Gospel of Matthew...
that begins immediately after this chapter. This section introduces Jesus' two main interlocutors. Verses 18
Matthew 4:18
Matthew 4:18 is the eighteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just begun preaching in Galilee...
to 22
Matthew 4:22
Matthew 4:22 is the twenty-second verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. After recruiting Simon Peter and Andrew as disciples Jesus encountered the brothers James and John and their father Zebedee...
describe the calling of the first four fishermen, who become his first disciples: Simon Peter, Andrew
Saint Andrew
Saint Andrew , called in the Orthodox tradition Prōtoklētos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name "Andrew" , like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him...
, James, and John
John the Apostle
John the Apostle, John the Apostle, John the Apostle, (Aramaic Yoħanna, (c. 6 - c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and brother of James, another of the Twelve Apostles...
. The disciples abandon possessions and family to be what Jesus calls in 4:19
Matthew 4:19
Matthew 4:19 is the nineteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just begun preaching in Galilee and has encountered the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew...
"fishers of men." The last three verses introduce the crowds that Jesus addresses. The last verses also serve as a summary of Jesus' ministry outlining the three forms it takes: teaching, preaching, and healing.
Verses
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Full text
In the King James Version this chapter reads:1
Matthew 4:1
Matthew 4:1 is the first verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse opens the section in Matthew dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan...
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2
Matthew 4:2
Matthew 4:2 is the second verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse is just preceding the section in Matthew dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan...
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3
Matthew 4:3
Matthew 4:3 is the third verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse opens the section in Matthew dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan...
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4
Matthew 4:4
Matthew 4:4 is the fourth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus, who has been fasting in the desert, has just been encouraged by Satan to make bread from stones to relieve his hunger, in this verse he rejects this idea.In the King James Version of the...
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5
Matthew 4:5
Matthew 4:5 is the fifth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rebuffed Satan's first temptation in this verse the devil transports him to the site of the second temptation....
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6
Matthew 4:6
Matthew 4:6 is the sixth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rebuffed Satan's first temptation in this verse the devil presents him with the second one while the pair stands on the pinnacle of the Temple of Jerusalem.In the King James Version of...
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7
Matthew 4:7
Matthew 4:7 is the seventh verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Satan has transported Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple of Jerusalem and told Jesus that he should throw himself down as God in Psalm 91 promised that no harm would befall him...
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8
Matthew 4:8
Matthew 4:8 is the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rejected Satan's second temptation...
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9
Matthew 4:9
Matthew 4:9 is the ninth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It is part of the Temptation of Christ narrative. Jesus has rebuffed two earlier temptations by Satan. The devil has thus transported Jesus to the top of a great mountain and shown him all the...
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10
Matthew 4:10
Matthew 4:10 is the tenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has rebuffed two earlier temptations by Satan. The devil has thus transported Jesus to the top of a great mountain and offered him control of the world to Jesus if he agrees to worship him...
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11
Matthew 4:11
Matthew 4:11 is the eleventh verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just rebuffed Satan's third temptation and order him away...
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
12
Matthew 4:12
Matthew 4:12 is the twelfth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The temptation scene has just ended, and this verse begins the introduction to the discussion of Jesus' ministry, which makes up the bulk of the gospel....
Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;
13
Matthew 4:13
Matthew 4:13 is the thirteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. In the previous verse Jesus returned to Galilee after hearing of the arrest of John the Baptist...
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:
14That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
15The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles;
16
Matthew 4:16
Matthew 4:16 is the sixteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. In the previous verses Jesus returned to Galilee after hearing of the arrest of John the Baptist and then left Nazareth for Capernaum...
The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.
17
Matthew 4:17
Matthew 4:17 is the seventeenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. In the previous verses Jesus returned to Galilee after hearing of the arrest of John the Baptist and then left Nazareth for Capernaum...
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
18
Matthew 4:18
Matthew 4:18 is the eighteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just begun preaching in Galilee...
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19
Matthew 4:19
Matthew 4:19 is the nineteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just begun preaching in Galilee and has encountered the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew...
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20
Matthew 4:20
Matthew 4:20 is the twentieth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just begun preaching in Galilee and has encountered the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew...
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
21
Matthew 4:21
Matthew 4:21 is the twenty-first verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just recruited Simon Peter and Andrew as disciples...
And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
22
Matthew 4:22
Matthew 4:22 is the twenty-second verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. After recruiting Simon Peter and Andrew as disciples Jesus encountered the brothers James and John and their father Zebedee...
And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
23
Matthew 4:23
Matthew 4:23 is the twenty-third verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Jesus has just recruited the first four disciples, this verse begins a brief summary of and introduction to Jesus' ministry in Galilee that will be recounted in the next several chapters.The...
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24
Matthew 4:24
Matthew 4:24 is the twenty-fourth verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse is part of a brief summary of and introduction to Jesus' ministry in Galilee, which will be recounted in the next several chapters...
And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
25
Matthew 4:25
Matthew 4:25 is the twenty-fifth, and final, verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse is part of a brief summary of and introduction to Jesus' ministry in Galilee, which will be recounted in the next several chapters...
And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.