Abraham’s Temptation, Forerunner of Jesus’ Temptation

Revised: 17-Aug-2018

Our father Abraham was tested [by God] with ten trials, and he withstood them all, demonstrating how great is God’s love for Abraham our father (Mishnah, Avot 5:3).^[6]

Abraham’s temptation while on his way with Isaac to the land of Moriah^[7] is amazingly similar to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13).

The Talmud describes Abraham’s temptation in its commentary on “After these things, God tested Abraham….” (Gen. 22:1). The “test,” “trial,” or “temptation”—all translations of the Hebrew word נִסָּיוֹן (nisayon)—was God’s command that Abraham take his only son Isaac to the land of Moriah and “offer him there as a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:2). Here is how the Talmud relates Abraham’s temptation:

---

• ^[1] Notice the next verse of this Psalm: “Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind” (Ps. 26:2). ↩
• ^[2] Jesus’ quotations are taken from the book of Deuteronomy, all of them concentrated in chapters 6 to 8. The same is true of the scriptural quotations found in the Abraham story: except for the quotation of Ps. 26:1, all are from Job 4. ↩
• ^[3] Cf. “He [Satan]…has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44; RVS). ↩
• ^[4] Cf. “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds…” (2 Cor. 10:3-5; KJV). In Luke 11:21-22, Jesus speaks of crushing Satan: “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace; but when one stronger than he assails him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoil” (RSV). In this saying Jesus alludes to Isa. 53:12, but rather than interpret it as “I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,” he interprets the verse as, “Publicly, I [Jesus] will divide him [Satan, the Strong Man] into pieces [i.e., bust him up, ‘take him apart’]; and with the stronger [Jesus] than he [Satan], he [Satan] will (be forced to) divide his [Satan's]) spoil.” ↩
• ^[5] Another passage that mentions Abraham’s arising and the generations of Enosh and the Flood is the famous passage about Abraham the Petra: “The Holy One, blessed is He, before He created the world, sat and examined the generation of Enosh and the generation of the Flood. ‘How can I create the world when those wicked people will arise and provoke me to anger?’ he said. When, however, the Holy One, blessed is He, saw Abraham who would appear, He said, ‘Here I have found solid rock [petra] on which I can build and upon which I can lay the world’s foundations’” (Yalkut Shim'oni to Num. 23:9). See Bivin, “Matthew 16:18: The  Petros-petra Wordplay—Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew?” Jerusalem Perspective 46 & 47 (Sept.-Dec. 1994), 32-36, 38. According to the interpretation attached to Abba bar Judan’s parable, Satan had destroyed many generations before Abraham appeared! In the petra passage, God, looking into the future, despaired of these same generations (referred to here as “those wicked people”). In fact, they were so wicked that, temporarily, God was unable to consider creating the world. ↩
• ^[6] The author’s translation of m. Avot 5:3, עֲשָׂרָה נִיסְיוֹנוֹת נִיתְנַסָּה אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ וְעָמַד בְּכּוּלָם לְהוֹדִיעַ כַּמָּה הִיא חִיבָּתוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ (Codex Kaufmann). ↩
• ^[7] Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 89^b. Abraham’s trial is the final of a series of ten. In his A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1987), 49-52, Samuel Tobias Lachs does not refer to this parallel. He does quote m. Avot 5:3, and reference Genesis Rabbah 22:6, two of the other rabbinic sources to which I have referred in this article. ↩