Mark 1:13

‘And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan, and he was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him.'

The sentence is pregnant with meaning. ‘In the wilderness', the place of the prophet and of meeting with God. ‘Forty days', the time Moses and Elijah spent with God. And now here was a greater than Moses and Elijah. ‘Tempted by Satan', put to the test as to His future plans, with an attempt to persuade Him to take the easy way and compromise with God's will. ‘With the wild beasts', away from man and civilised society and among what was contrary to man, with no human company, only the company of wild beasts. Here was the greatest prophet of all. ‘And the angels ministered to Him'. He was under God's own protection.

‘And he was in the wilderness forty days.' Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights to receive God's covenant and His instruction (Exodus 24:18; Exodus 34:28), and Elijah was in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights when he fled for his life and God spoke to him and renewed his commission (1 Kings 19:8). But both these were for ‘forty days and forty nights'. However we may put this down to Mark's abbreviating tendency for Matthew makes it ‘forty days and forty nights' (Matthew 4:2). Thus Matthew clearly makes this connection.

So Jesus is seen as following in the footsteps of Moses and Elijah, the most revered of the prophets (compare Mark 9:4 and parallels). It is probably not without significance that they are both figures the like of whom were expected to come in the future, the ‘prophet like Moses' who would know God face to face and have God's words put in his mouth (Deuteronomy 18:15; Deuteronomy 18:18 with Deuteronomy 34:10) and the coming Elijah who would prepare the way for the Lord (Malachi 4:5), for they represented the Prophetic Law (Torah = ‘instruction') and the Prophetic utterance. And now One was come Who was to outshine them both.

‘Tempted of Satan.' Mark says nothing about the content of the temptations. He knows that the accounts of them are well known. But in order for them to be mentioned he must clearly have seen the testing as connected with His mission. And, as in fact we know from the other Gospels, the final temptations were as to how He would go about fulfilling His mission: the temptation to misuse His powers, the temptation to use marvels to win people over, the temptation to avoid the way of suffering by lowering Himself through compromise (see Matthew 4:1; Luke 4:1). But in the end they were temptations not to walk in the way of God.

We should note however that Mark gives the impression of continual temptation. Jesus is tempted throughout the forty days. In Matthew the final temptations come at the end. But this must surely be because those final temptations were the earlier temptations finally crystallised into a solid and specific form. The continual temptations are seen as having finally brought Jesus to the point of dealing with the three major ones then crystallised in His mind by the subtleties of the Devil. And, after a short break (Luke 4:13), the temptations will continue throughout His life (e.g. Matthew 16:23).

‘Satan.' Meaning ‘the adversary' and also called ‘the Devil' (diabolos - the accuser, the slanderer. Used in LXX to translate ‘Satan'). He appears in the Old Testament as a heavenly being who leads men astray and who attacks God's servants in the presence of God, opposing God's purposes (1 Chronicles 21:1; Job 1:6 to Job 2:7; Zechariah 3:1). When he is cast down from that position it is a cause of great rejoicing (Revelation 12:9).

‘And He was with the wild beasts.' In Psalms 91:11 domination of wild beasts goes hand in hand with the ministration of angels. Thus the thought here may well include the idea that He need not be afraid of them. He was with them, but because of His relationship of love with God they are subject to His control. They cannot touch Him. We can compare Daniel's words, ‘My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths' (Daniel 6:22). But the idea is also surely that he was away from man with no one but the wild beasts for company (and the angels). The wild beasts are met with in desolate places (Isaiah 34:14).

In other Jewish literature (The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs) there appears to be a connection between wild beasts in desert places and demonic forces. Some have therefore suggested that there may thus be in this a further hint at His battle with Satanic forces, but there is no other hint of their presence here so that this is unlikely. (If this were the meaning we would expect the wild beasts to be mentioned earlier, prior to Satan's activity).

However, the section chiasmus above brings out that these wild beasts may also be compared with the later antagonism of Jesus' adversaries (Mark 3:22), just as the wild beasts which represented the godless nations were contrasted with the ‘son of man' and the true people of God who truly served Him in Daniel 7. From the beginning then, Jesus is being made aware that He has come among the ‘wild beasts'. The world will not welcome Him. The way ahead will be rough.

‘And the angels ministered to Him.' Compare Hebrews 1:14 and 2 Kings 6:15. Whether this means being fed as Elijah was (1 Kings 19:5), or protected as Elisha was (2 Kings 6:15) and as the Psalmist described (Psalms 91:11), we do not know. But it is a reminder that in the ‘heavenly places', the spiritual realm where the Christian lives and wrestles with evil (Ephesians 6:12), there are those who quietly and unobtrusively, unseen and unheralded, provide sustenance and help to the tempted (Hebrews 1:14).