Remember
how the Lord your God led you all
the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to
know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He
humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which
neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live
on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3
Jesus’
forty-day temptation in the desert drew parallels to the Israelites forty year
wilderness experience. Remember, the
spies were gone for forty days and God punished their lack of faith to take the
promised land by causing the Israelites to wander in the wilderness for forty
years, one year for every day the spies were gone.
Jesus
quoted the Devil three times in response to three temptations. Two of those responses were direct quotes
from Deuteronomy (6:16, 8:3) and one from Psalms (91:11,12). The Deuteronomy quotes come right from
passages talking about the forty-year experience.
The
Israelites failed in their forty-day and forty-year experience, but Jesus did not
fail for forty days to show them that he was God.