Tempt
TEMPT
To make trial of, Luk 10:25, and usually to present inducements to sin. Satan is the great tempter, seeking thus most effectually to destroy men’s souls, 1Ch 21:1 Job 1:1-2 :13 Mt 4:1 1Th 3:5 . Men are also led into sin by their own evil inclinations and by other men, Jam 1:14-15 . God, being holy and desirous of men’s holiness, does not thus tempt them, Jam 1:13 ; but he makes trial of them, to prove, exercise, and establish their graces, Gen 22:1 Jam 1:2-3 . Christ stands ready to support his people under any possible temptation, 1Co 10:13 Heb 2:18 4:15 2Pe 2:19 . Yet they are not to rush into temptation unbidden, Luk 11:4 . Men tempt God by presumptuously experimenting on his providence or his grace, or by distrusting him, Exo 17:2,7 Isa 7:12 Mat 4:7 Mal 5:9 15:10. Sore afflictions are often called temptations or trials, as they are frequently the occasion of sin, Mat 6:13 Luk 8:13 22:28 Jam 1:12 1Pe 1:6,7 .Christ, at the outset of his public ministry, was violently assailed by the tempter, who thus displayed his effrontery and his blindness, hoping perhaps that the human soul of the Redeemer would be left unaided by his divinity, Mat 4:1-25 . The temptations are to be understood as real transactions, and not as visions. The tempter was baffled, and left him for a season, to meet a like rebuff on every future assault, Luk 4:13 22:53 Joh 14:30 . The Savior triumphed, and paradise was regained.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Tempt
is used in the Bible in the Latin sense of prove, as a rendering especially of
, bachdn, and , which both signify to test or try. It is applied to various beings in different senses, not always involving an evil purpose wherein the temptation is presented to the mind as an inducement to sin. SEE TEMPTATION.
1. God is said to have tempted Abraham by commanding him to offer up his son Isaac (Gen 22:1), intending to prove his obedience and faith, to confirm and strengthen him by this trial, and to furnish in his person an example and pattern of perfect obedience for all succeeding ages. God does not tempt or try men in order to ascertain their tempers and dispositions, as if he were ignorant of them, but to exercise their virtue, to purify it, to render it conspicuous to others, to give them an opportunity of receiving favors from his hands. When we read in Scripture that God proved his people, whether they would walk in his law or not (Exo 16:4), and that he permitted false prophets to arise among them, who prophesied vain things to try them whether they would seek the Lord with their whole hearts, we should interpret these expressions by that of James (Jam 1:13-14), Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.
2. The devil tempts us to evil of every kind, and lays snares for us, even in our best actions. Satan, having access to the sensorium, lays inducements before the minds of men to solicit them to sin (1Co 7:5; 1Th 3:5; Jam 1:13-14). Hence Satan is called that old serpent, the devil, and the tempter (Rev 12:9; Mat 4:3), and the temptation of our first parents to sin is expressly recognized as the work of the devil (Gen 3:1-15; Joh 8:44; 2Co 11:3; 1Jn 3:8). He tempted our Savior in the wilderness, and endeavored to infuse into him sentiments of pride, ambition, and distrust (Mat 4:1; Mar 1:13; Luk 4:2). He tempted Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Ghost (Act 5:3). In the prayer that Christ himself has taught us, we pray God to lead us not into temptation (Mat 6:13); and a little before his death, our Savior exhorted his disciples to watch and pray, that they might not enter into temptation (26:41). Paul says, God will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear (1Co 10:13).
3. Men are said to tempt the Lord when they unseasonably require proofs of the divine presence, power, or goodness. Without doubt, we are allowed to seek the Lord for his assistance, and to pray him to give us what we need; but it is not allowed us to tempi him, nor to expose ourselves to dangers from which we cannot escape unless by miraculous interposition of his omnipotence.. God is not obliged to work miracles in our favor; he requires of us only the performance of such actions as are within the ordinary measures of our strength. The Israelites in the desert repeatedly tempted the Lord, as if they had reason to doubt his presence among them, or his goodness, or his power, after all his appearances in their favor (Exo 16:2; Exo 16:7; Exo 16:17; Num 20:12; Psa 78:18; Psa 78:41, etc.).
4. Men tempt or try one another when they would know whether things are really what they seem to be, whether men are such as they are thought or desired to be. The queen of Sheba came to prove the wisdom of Solomon by proposing riddles for him to explain (1Ki 11:1; 2Ch 9:1). Daniel desired of him who had the care of feeding him and his companions to prove them for some days whether abstinence from food of certain kinds would make them leaner (Dan 1:12; Dan 1:14). The scribes and Pharisees often tempted our Savior, and endeavored to decoy him into their snares (Mat 16:1; Mat 19:3; Mat 22:18).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Tempt
signifies (1) “to try, attempt, assay” (see TRY); (2) “to test, try, prove,” in a good sense, said of Christ and of believers, Heb 2:18, where the context shows that the temptation was the cause of suffering to Him, and only suffering, not a drawing away to sin, so that believers have the sympathy of Christ as their High Priest in the suffering which sin occasions to those who are in the enjoyment of communion with God; so in the similar passage in Heb 4:15; in all the temptations which Christ endured, there was nothing within Him that answered to sin. There was no sinful infirmity in Him. While He was truly man, and His Divine nature was not in any way inconsistent with His Manhood, there was nothing in Him such as is produced in us by the sinful nature which belongs to us; in Heb 11:37, of the testing of OT saints; in 1Co 10:13, where the meaning has a wide scope, the verb is used of “testing” as permitted by God, and of the believer as one who should be in the realization of his own helplessness and his dependence upon God (see PROVE, TRY); in a bad sense, “to tempt” (a) of attempts to ensnare Christ in His speech, e.g., Mat 16:1; Mat 19:3; Mat 22:18, Mat 22:35, and parallel passages; Joh 8:6; (b) of temptations to sin, e.g., Gal 6:1, where one who would restore an erring brother is not to act as his judge, but as being one with him in liability to sin, with the possibility of finding himself in similar circumstances, Jam 1:13-14 (see note below); of temptations mentioned as coming from the Devil, Mat 4:1; and parallel passages; 1Co 7:5; 1Th 3:5 (see TEMPTER); (c) of trying or challenging God, Act 15:10; 1Co 10:9 (2nd part); Heb 3:9; the Holy Spirit, Act 5:9, cp. No. 2.
Note: “James 1:13-15 seems to contradict other statements of Scripture in two respects, saying (a) that ‘God cannot be tempted with evil,’ and (b) that ‘He Himself tempteth no man.’ But God tempted, or tried, Abraham, Heb 11:17, and the Israelites tempted, or tried, God, 1Co 10:9. Jam 1:14, however, makes it plain that, whereas in these cases the temptation or trial, came from without, James refers to temptation, or trial, arising within, from uncontrolled appetites and from evil passions, cp. Mar 7:20-23. But though such temptation does not proceed from God, yet does God regard His people while they endure it, and by it tests and approves them.” * [* From Notes on Thessalonians, by Hogg and Vine, p. 97.]
an intensive form of the foregoing, is used in much the same way as No. 1 (2) (c), in Christ’s quotation from Deu 6:16, in reply to the Devil, Mat 4:7; Luk 4:12; so in 1Co 10:9, RV, “the Lord” (AV, “Christ”); of the lawyer who “tempted” Christ, Luk 10:25. In the Sept., Deu 6:16; Deu 8:2, Deu 8:16; Psa 78:18. Cp. dokimazo (see PROVE).
“untempted, untried” (a, negative, and A, No. 1), occurs in Jam 1:13, with eimi, “to be,” “cannot be tempted,” “untemptable” (Mayor).