Why Does the Devil Demand Bread?
When Jesus is fasting in the wilderness, the first thing that Satan does is ask for bread: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:3; cf. Luke 4:3). Yet, this famous story of testing is not the first time that the devil asks for bread in ancient Jewish literature. Before Yeshua had his demonic encounter, Judaism knew of the satanic tendency to request bread from human beings.
Prior to the Gospels depiction of the devil asking Jesus for “bread” (ἄρτος, ārtos), the Testament of Job records a story of Satan telling Job’s female servant, “Say to Job, ‘Give me bread (ἄρτος, ārtos) from your hands, so I may eat’” (T. Job 7:2). After a discussion between the devil and the doormaid, she gives him a burnt loaf of bread along with words from Job himself: “Thus says my lord [Job], ‘You shall no longer eat from my loaves at all, for I have been estranged from you. Yet I have given you this [burnt] bread in order that I may not be accused of providing nothing to a begging enemy’” (T. Job 10-11). Just as the servant refuses to give the devil any edible bread by citing the words of Job, Jesus rejects Satan’s demand for bread by citing the words of Moses: “‘One does not live by bread (ἄρτος, ārtos) alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matt 4:4; cf. Deuteronomy 8:3). But why does Satan ask for bread?
The tale in the Testament of Job may have its roots in the biblical book of Job. Speaking of the difference between the righteous and wicked, Eliphaz tells Job, “All the days of the wicked one (רָשָׁע; rasha) he suffers pain…. He wanders around for bread (לַלֶּחֶם; la’lehem), asking, ‘Where is it?’” (Job 15:20, 23). The author(s) of the Testament of Job may have flagged this reference to an evil one requesting bread and used it a precedent for the devil trying to find the same food.
Similarly, the Gospels’ association between Satan and bread seems to have its origin in Deuteronomy—the text that Jesus cites three times in response to the devil. In the final book of the Torah, the withholding of bread is connected to the presence of God. When Moses receives the “covenant of the Lord” on Sinai, he says that he “remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread (לֶחֶם; lehem) nor drank water” (Deut 9:9; cf. 9:18). Later in the book, Moses speaks for God to Israel, saying, “You have not eaten bread (לֶחֶם), and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God” (Deut 29:6). Since the devil also demands that Jesus worship him rather than God (cf. Matt 4:9; Lk 4:7), the initial request for bread can be seen as Satan’s subtle attempt to drive a wedge between Yeshua and his Father; since the absence of bread alludes to the presence of God in Deuteronomy, it follows that a supply of bread would undercut the Deuteronomistic precedent of Israel’s fellowship with the Lord. In refusing the devil’s demand for bread, Jesus promotes the presence of God.
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