Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 1:13
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
13. tempted of Satan ] In Mat 4:1 and Luk 4:2, He is said to have been tempted by the Devil, i. e. the “Slanderer,” who slanders God to man (Gen 3:1-5) and man to God (Job 1:9-11; Rev 12:10). St Mark, who never uses this word, says He was tempted by Satan, i e. “the Enemy” of God and man alike. He seems to have been permitted to tempt our Lord during the whole of the forty days, but at the end of that period to have assailed Him with increased intensity through every avenue that could allure, as afterwards in Gethsemane through every channel that could terrify and appal (Luk 4:13).
the wild beasts ] St Mark relates the Temptation very briefly, but he alone adds the graphic touch to the picture that the Saviour was “with the wild beasts,” unhurt by them, as Adam was in Paradise. Comp. Daniel in the den of lions.
the angels ] St Matthew records the ministry of Angels at the close as to a Heavenly Prince (Mat 4:11). St Mark records a ministry of the same celestial Visitants apparently throughout the trial.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 13. With the wild beasts] This is a curious circumstance, which is mentioned by none of the other evangelists; and seems to intimate that he was in the most remote, unfrequented, and savage part of the desert; which, together with the diabolic influence, tended to render the whole scene the more horrid. Perhaps this very circumstance is mentioned, as emblematical of that savage and brutal cruelty with which he was persecuted to death by the Jews and Gentiles, instigated thereto by the malice of Satan.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And he was there in the wilderness forty days,…. The Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions add, “and forty nights”: for so long was he there,
tempted of Satan: the several temptations of Satan, and how they were overcome by Christ, are particularly related by the Evangelist Matthew, Mt 4:3, which are here omitted; and what is not mentioned there, is here recorded:
and was with the wild beasts: which shows, that he was now in an uncultivated and uninhabited part of the desert by men, and where only the most fierce and most savage of creatures dwelt; and yet was as secure and unhurt by them, being the Lord of them, as Adam in Eden’s garden, or Daniel in the lions’ den. This circumstance is only related by the Evangelist Mark, and is what adds to the uncomfortable situation Christ was in, when tempted by Satan; and his being not hurt by them, may declare, partly his innocence, as man, being as pure and holy as the first man was in his state of integrity, when all creatures were brought before him, to give them names; and partly the power of God, who shut up the mouths of these creatures, that they did him no hurt; and also may signify, the awe they stood in of him, who, as God, is Lord of all. These creatures were more gentle to Christ, and used him better than the wicked Jews, among whom he dwelt, who are compared to lions, dogs, and “bulls” of Bashan, Ps 22:12.
And the angels ministered unto him; after the temptations were over, and Satan had left him, preparing for him, and bringing to him proper food, after so long a fast; and waiting upon him, and serving him as their great Lord and master; [See comments on Mt 4:11].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
With the wild beasts ( ). Mark does not give the narrative of the three temptations in Matthew and Luke (apparently from the Logia and originally, of course, from Jesus himself). But Mark adds this little touch about the wild beasts in the wilderness. It was the haunt at night of the wolf, the boar, the hyena, the jackal, the leopard. It was lonely and depressing in its isolation and even dangerous. Swete notes that in Ps 90:13 the promise of victory over the wild beasts comes immediately after that of angelic guardianship cited by Satan in Mt 4:6. The angels did come and minister (), imperfect tense, kept it up till he was cheered and strengthened. Dr. Tristram observes that some Abyssinian Christians are in the habit of coming to the Quarantania during Lent and fasting forty days on the summit amid the ruins of its ancient cells and chapels where they suppose Jesus was tempted. But we are all tempted of the devil in the city even worse than in the desert.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
With the wild beasts
Peculiar to Mark. The region just alluded to abounds in boars, jackals, wolves, foxes, leopards, hyenas, etc.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And He-was there in the wilderness,” (kai en te eremo tesseralonta hemeras) “And He was (existed) in the desert, wilderness, or uninhabited, inhospitable place for a period of forty days,” Mat 4:2; Luk 4:2. Where Satan approached Him, suiting his temptation to the circumstance, but misapplying scripture to tempt Jesus, even as Satan’s prophets do today, 2Co 11:13-15.
2) “Tempted of Satan;”- (peirazomenos hupo tou satana) “Being in a state or condition of temptation by Satan,” or being in a state of testing by Satan, all the time He was there, as we are, Heb 4:15; 1Co 10:13.
3) “And was with the wild beasts,” (kai en meta ton therion) “And existed with (lived among) the wild beasts,” among the wild varmints, day and night, even as Moses did in the Sinai for forty years, before leading Israel out of Egypt, Act 7:29-34.
4) “And the angels ministered unto Him.” (kai hou angelsi diekonoun auto) “And the angels ministered to Him,” in His crisis, to meet His common needs, Heb 1:14; as they often did later, Mat 26:53; Joh 1:51; Luk 22:43. The angels served as deacons to Him.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(13) And he was there in the wilderness.See Notes on Mat. 4:2-11. St. Mark compresses the history by omitting the several forms of the Temptation. Peculiar to him are (1) the use of Satan instead of the devil; (2) the statement that Jesus was with the wild beasts. In our Lords time these might include the panther, the bear, the wolf, the hyena, possibly the lion. The implied thought is partly that their presence added to the terrors of the Temptation, partly that in His being protected from them there was the fulfilment of the promise in the very Psalm which furnished the Tempter with his chief weapon, that the true child of God should trample under foot the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon (Psa. 91:13).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. Forty days tempted This by no means affirms that the temptation lasted during the whole forty days, any more than the ministry of angels mentioned in the last clause. Satan wild beasts the angels Three very different sorts of company. Diabolical and brutal natures were present to witness or subdue the divine; but, on the other hand the divine and angelic combined with the human were too mighty for them.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘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 (Exo 24:18; Exo 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 (1Ki 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’ (Mat 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 Mar 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 (Deu 18:15; Deu 18:18 with Deu 34:10) and the coming Elijah who would prepare the way for the Lord (Mal 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 Mat 4:1-11; Luk 4:1-13). 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 (Luk 4:13), the temptations will continue throughout His life (e.g. Mat 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 (1Ch 21:1; Job 1:6 to Job 2:7; Zec 3:1). When he is cast down from that position it is a cause of great rejoicing (Rev 12:9-10).
‘And He was with the wild beasts.’ In Psa 91:11-13 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’ (Dan 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 (Isa 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 (Mar 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 Heb 1:14 and 2Ki 6:15-17. Whether this means being fed as Elijah was (1Ki 19:5-7), or protected as Elisha was (2Ki 6:15-17) and as the Psalmist described (Psa 91:11-12), 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 (Eph 6:12), there are those who quietly and unobtrusively, unseen and unheralded, provide sustenance and help to the tempted (Heb 1:14).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mar 1:13. And was with the wild beasts St. Mark is often very circumstantial in his narrations, and adds many things for the sake of the Romans or Gentiles in general, to enable them the better to understand him. Thus, as a Roman might not know how wild and uninhabited the deserts of Arabia were, in which Christ was tempted, he adds here, and was with the wild beasts. See Owen on the Gospel, and Grotius
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Ver. 13. And was with the wild beasts ] Unhurt by them, as Adam was in the state of integrity. These fell creatures saw in Christ the perfect image of God; and therefore reverenced him as their Lord, as they did Adam before his fall, see Job 5:21-22 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mar 1:13 . , being tempted, presumably the whole time; doubtless the real truth. Two powers at work all through, the Spirit of God and the spirit of evil. . .: not merely pictorial or intended to hint danger; meant rather to indicate the uninhabited nature of the place; no supplies obtainable there, hunger therefore a part of the experience. : angels as opposed, not to devils (Schanz), but to human beings, of whom there were none. , ministered; in what way not said, but implying exhaustion. These few touches of Mk. suggest a vivid picture of a spiritual crisis: intense preoccupation, instinctive retreat into congenial grim solitudes, temptation, struggle, fierce and protracted, issuing in weakness, calling for preternatural aid.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
tempted = being tempted. with the wild beasts. A Divine supplementary particular. Occurs only here.
with. Greek. meta. App-104.
the angels, &c. See note on Mat 4:11, and App-116.
ministered = were ministering.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mar 1:13. , with the wild beasts) An important fact; comp. Gen 1:26. This was a state more trying than the mere solitude of the desert. [Here the Saviour was removed apart from angels and men; and yet, however, not liable to the attacks of wild beasts. He even now, in the very height of His humiliation (self-emptying), exercised over the beasts the dominion which Adam had so soon suffered himself to lose; how much more so, when exalted! Psa 8:8.-V. g.] Mark not only exhibits in a more compendious compass the history described by Matthew, but also, as it were in the manner of a supplement, some particulars of considerable value, which had not been previously recorded by Matthew, but which were calculated to afford profitable instruction to believers, who by this time had become proficients in the truth.[8]
[8] Michaelis, in the Enleitung, etc., T. ii., p. 1154, etc., has tried to prove, by induction of particulars, that those things which Mark has either omitted or supplied, most especially accord with the tradition of the ancients, which represented Marks aim in writing to have been with a view to the conversion and edification of the Romans.-E. B.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
forty: Exo 24:18, Exo 34:28, Deu 9:11, Deu 9:18, Deu 9:25, 1Ki 19:8
tempted: Heb 2:17, Heb 2:18, Heb 4:15
and the: 1Ki 19:5-7, Mat 4:11, Mat 26:53, 1Ti 3:16
Reciprocal: Luk 4:1 – and was
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS
And the angels ministered unto Him.
Mar 1:13
The doctrine of the Ministry of Angels is one which appeals strongly to our religious sentiment. We delight to think that Gods Messengers of Love are always about us; thatit may beeach individual soul is the special care of one particular heavenly guardian. Sometimes our thoughts will take a wider range. How far are what we call the laws of Nature in reality due to the obedient and faithful ministrations of unseen personalities, offering up to the Most High the sacrifice of endless and perfect service?
I. Endorsed by Christ.Faith in angelic aid and supervision receives support from the narratives of the Evangelists. Not only do we read of such ministrations in connection with the Temptation in the Wilderness, but we hear of them in relation to the Incarnation, the Agony in Gethsemane, the Resurrection, the Ascension. Mary received her calling from an angelic visitant. There were deathless angels seated in the vacant tomb. Our Lord Himself uses such expressions as the holy angels or the angels in heaven. He declares that He will come again with them in the glory of His Father. He refers to them as nescient of the time of the Advent. He describes them as moved with joy over the repentance of one sinner. Children are spoken of by Him as having their angelic representatives before the throne of thrones. Angels are pictured in one of His parables as carrying away the soul of Lazarus into Abrahams bosom. In those last crowning hoursthat awful climax of His own ministry of redeeming loveHe reminds His Apostle of the possibility of angelic interference, if only He were willing to avail Himself of it. The Ministry of Angels is, therefore, a doctrine which comes to us not only with the clear warrant of Scripture, but plainly endorsed by our Saviour Himself.
II. But with reserve.Christs teaching, however, on this subject, like all His teaching with regard to the other world and the life to come, is marked by its strict reserve. He does not, indeed, accept the standpoint of the Sadducees. On the other hand, there is no countenance given by Him to the exaggerated angelology of a section of the Judaism of His day. Unfortunately, the members of His Church have not always been willing to keep themselves within the limits prescribed by Him. In the first century the fault showed itself in an alarming form. The Colossians, it seems, classified the angels into grades such as thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers; and they appear to have assigned to each class the precise degree of worship due from man to those who composed it. In his Epistle to the Church at Coloss St. Paul sets against such imaginary divisions and their consequences the spiritual supremacy of Christ. The ministry of angels is a Christian truth in which we do well to rejoice; but there is no real scriptural authority for what is sometimes taught as Christian angelology.
III. Its subordinate position.Another not less important and noteworthy characteristic of our Lords teaching upon that doctrine is the completely subordinate position which He assigns to it. In this respect He corrected some of the religious thought with which He found Himself confronted. One of the cardinal features of His preaching was His insistence upon the nearness and accessibility of God. Men were not to look upon their Maker as dwelling in aloofness. Men were not to turn away from the contemplation of God to lose themselves on the one side in faith in the creature rather than in the Creator, or on the other in superstitious fear of evil agents ever scheming for the ruin of mankind. Our Lords doctrine of God was incompatible with an exaggerated trust in angels, and equally incompatible with a craven terror of demons. Do we altogether realise the full wonder and beauty of that doctrine? The exaggeration of angelic ministrations may be such as to come between not merely ourselves and our Heavenly Father, but also between us and the Divine Son.
IV. The supremacy of Christ.Loyalty to the Gospel demands that we should seriously and earnestly set ourselves to grasp it in something of its real length and breadth and depth. We can at least do so to this extentwe can at least learn to repeat with heartfelt sincerity that most touching, most moving, line of Charles Wesleys: Thou, O Christ, art all I want. Thou, and not another! Thou, and not angel or archangel! Thou, and not saint or martyr! Thou, even thou! Under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refugeboth now and hereafter, both in life and in death, both in the hour of temptation and in the Day of Judgment,
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.
There is no inconsistency between such fervent faith in God and belief that there are ministering spirits who have their work to do in connection with us. The inconsistency begins and becomes serious when the greater trust is in a measure displaced by the lesser.
Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.
Illustration
That last assault of the prince of the world might well have a stunning effect even upon Jesus. Its flash of dazzling revelation might tax the balance even of His super-ordinary steadiness. So, when the challenge comes, Fall down and worship me, we see Jesus avert His eyes from the tempters brilliancy; and while He says, Get thee gone, He turns to God and stretches forth His hands to seek and claim the delivering grasp of rescue from a fearful strait. That moment of appeal saw the escape of Jesus from Satans importunities. The final incitement to treason so stirred His loyalty to God that the links that bound Him to heaven were drawn tight and close in a spasm of yearning desire. His soul reached out to God, and His heart clave to Him. It was thus that the angels came. They were not sent to make up any lack in the power of Jesus to resist in the crisis of His trial. It was simply that He so recoiled from the inducements of hell, and so sought the fellowship of heaven, that the one went and the other came, spontaneously and of necessity.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
3
This verse gives a general summing up of the different things that took place with Jesus in those forty days: for the details see Mat 4:1-11. Gospel of the kingdom means good news that the kingdom of heaven was about to be set up.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
[And was with the wild beasts.] He was among the wild beasts, but was not touched by them. So Adam first before his fall.
[And angels ministered unto him.] Forty days he was tempted by Satan invisibly, and angels ministered to him visibly. Satan, at last, put on the appearance of an angel of light, and pretending to wait on him, as the rest also did, hid his hook of temptation the more artificially.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mar 1:13. Tempted. It is implied here, as in Luke, that the temptation continued during the forty days, although the more personal assault was made at the close of the fast.
Satan, the prince of darkness, was personally engaged.
With the wild beasts. A graphic touch peculiar to Mark, enhancing the horror of the scene. Christ was probably threatened with physical danger from the wild beasts. Scarcely a figurative expression of His loneliness and helplessness. Possibly a hint of His lordship over animals, who could not hurt or flee from Him: or an allusion to the second Adam as the restorer of Paradise.
Ministered. Probably with food (comp. Mat 4:11). The fasting, though not mentioned, is thus implied.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 13
Ministered unto him; attended upon him,–to supply his wants, and to restore his strength and spirits after the temptation.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Christ was tempted. The word translated “tempted” also has the idea of assay, or test to see what the quality is. The old west was full of assay offices where gold was to be found. The prospector would bring his gold to the assay office to find out what quality the gold was, was it poor or was it of high quality.
Not that anyone needs to be told just how Christ would assay out, He is perfection, He is God how could the assay come back wanting? On the other hand who would be stupid enough to want to test Christ as to quality? No thinking person would suggest such a thing, but Satan – Satan is another being, he just cannot take God at His word, he must test everything that God does or says, lest God be found wanting in some way.
Now I don’t know the motivation of Satan at this point, whether he is really inept enough to wonder who and what Christ is or whether he is doing this out of shear desperation. He wants to see if he can find some imperfection in the Lord so that he can point his finger at God and make accusation.
Either way, can you put yourself in the Devil’s position and feel his pain? I think there must have been a heavy dose of “that sinking feeling.”
The term wilderness is the same term as we have already seen – desert, deserted and those other descriptive terms. Christ was alone with this creature that had been against God from his early days. There must have been a side order of fear in Christ to know the past activity of Satan and to know of his hatred for God. To be alone with such a creature must have been a trial in itself on top of the temptations that went along with it.
As with our previous study, the whole story is in the synoptics. Mat 4:1 ff and Luk 4:1 ff both give the detail of the temptations and Matthew ends the section with the following comment. “Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” There was a lot of time between the temptation that Mark mentions and the angels ministering.
This is normal in the gospels, the different writers leaving out portions of the actual account to bring about the account that they wanted to set down for their readers. Luke mentions in 4.13 “And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.” Often we invision this temptation as the one time event where Christ was the victor and the opponent went off sulking – not so. This was only the first of the temptations that the Lord was to endure over the course of his ministry.
Don’t be lulled into complacency. Be watchful for the Devil’s approach. You may feel you have dealt with him, but he is always lurking and watching for a chance to clobber you when you are off guard.
Years ago when pastoring a small work, there had been a lot of discussion about our church buying a Jehovah witness hall for a meeting place. I was opposed to it due to the fact that we had no finances for such a venture and second the town was very anti Jehovah Witness. Most people had signs on their front doors warning the Jehovah Witnesses that they were not welcome to knock.
I had talked to a lot of the townsfolk and found that they to a man told me to not get involved with the building if we ever wanted to grow.
The church met to discuss the issue, voted on it and unanimously decided it would be a poor decision. Having set that beast aside I thought smooth sailing was ahead. About two months later as I was relaxing at a potluck, one of the men of the church – one who did not attend the meeting on the building – sat down beside me and suggested that the church reconsider the Jehovah Witness building. He had been talking to those in the know about the cost of the building etc. and thought reconsideration was in order.
The devil hit me when I was relaxing at a potluck – he never rests even if we try to.
The temptation was followed by a time of recuperation. God sent angels to minister to the Lord. The word translated “minister” is the term that we gain deacon from. It relates to serving the needs of another. Christ had needs and God was there to meet them for Him.
There must have been enjoyment in the Lord’s mind to know that the Devil was gone for awhile and He could accept the ministrations of the angels. So, when you have had hard trials, open yourself to the ministrations of others. They are there to assist you, and it is good for you to allow them to have this ministry with you.
On the same hand, do not feel guilty about taking some time for you to recoup from hard times. Take time to refresh, to reflect and to thank the Lord for what he has done in your life.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
The traditional site of this temptation, dating back to the twelfth century A.D., is the Mons Quarantania, the Hill of the 40 Days. It stands just west of Jericho. However the exact location is unknown.
The Greek word peirazo means to put someone or something through a trial to demonstrate its character. God allowed Satan to tempt Jesus for two reasons: to show that He would not draw away from the Father’s will, and to demonstrate His qualification for His mission. The name "Satan" is a transliteration of the Hebrew word satan, meaning adversary.
By omitting reference to the three tempting offers that Satan posed, Mark focused the reader’s attention on the fact that Jesus endured continuous testing for 40 days. He pointed out this continuing conflict throughout this Gospel (Mar 8:11; Mar 8:32-33; Mar 10:2; Mar 12:15). Mark’s unique reference to the wild beasts heightens the fierceness of the temptation. The Jews associated the wilderness with wild beasts and Satanic hostility (cf. Isa 13:20-22; Isa 34:8-15; Psa 22:11-21; Psa 91:11-13).
". . . in His exposure to the assaults of Satan, Jesus was ’Adam’ as well as ’Israel.’ Israel’s sonship was modeled on Adam’s, since God is the Creator-Father in both instances. The wilderness forges a link between the two, for it represents reverse imagery, especially with Mark’s mention of the ’the wild beasts’ (Mar 1:13). Opinion on the proper location of the animals is divided between the paradise and wilderness settings. However, it may be that the Gospels glance at the beasts both in Adam’s mandate to rule the earth (Gen 1:26-28) and in their association with satanic powers (Psa 22:11-21; Eze 34:5; Eze 34:8; Eze 34:25; Luk 10:19), thus suggesting the chaos that threatens to (re)impose itself on the ordered world (e.g., Job 5:22; Eze 5:17; Eze 14:21; . . .)." [Note: Don B. Garlington, "Jesus, the Unique Son of God: Tested and Faithful," Bibliotheca Sacra 151:603 (July-September 1994):288-89. See also Guelich, p. 39.]
God’s angelic servants ministered to Jesus during His time of testing (cf. Heb 1:14). God did not leave His Son alone but provided grace to help in this time of need.
"The presence of angels to sustain Jesus underlines the cosmic dimension of the temptation: Jesus’ struggle with Satan is a clash between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of evil. In the temptation, then, Jesus Son of God shows what his ministry will be about: the binding of Satan and the inauguration of the end-time age of salvation (Mar 3:27)." [Note: Kingsbury, p. 35.]
"The first Adam succumbed in an environment that was beautiful and friendly; the last Adam maintained His purity in an environment that was desolate and hostile." [Note: Hiebert, p. 40.]
In the introduction to his Gospel, Mark stressed the humility and faithful service that Jesus rendered to God at the commencement of His public ministry. Jesus was fully human but approved by the Father and aided by the Spirit as well as by God’s angelic helpers. He was also fully deity. Readers undergoing persecution for their faith can find great encouragement in this section, especially in Jesus’ victory over temptation from Satan.