The Hard Sayings: Matthew 4:4

Matthew 4:4

This article is the beginning of a new series explaining the secrets hidden in the sayings of Jesus that are considered “hard.”

Matthew 4:4 might be “hard,” but mostly it isn’t Jesus’s saying at all. Before explaining this further, let us look at an English translation. The NIV version of this verse goes:

NIV: It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

The words in boldface are those that we discuss in this article. They represent various ideas obscured in translation. The first part, “it is written” is Jesus, but the rest of this verse is an exact quote of Moses from Deuteronomy 8:3 in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. The Septuagint was written in Alexandria about two hundred years before the time of Christ, but it is our most complete example of how Galileans and Judeans spoke around his era. This verse is from the last speech Moses gave his people before they crossed over the Jordan River, leaving Moses behind to die.

Notice that Moses does not say that physical bread is not important to life, but simply that it alone is not sufficient. There is something more to living that provides the “butter” for our bread.

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The “Word”

It is interesting that this is the first use of the English word "word" in our translations of Jesus’s sayings in the New Testament. In Matthew, this story follows the baptism of Jesus. What is particularly interesting about this is that no Hebrew word meaning “word” appears in the Torah version of the Old Testament. The Hebrew says something more like “everything pouring out of the mouth.” The idea of a “saying” is added in the Greek translation. The idea of a “word” is added in the English one. The Greek word used here isn’t logos (see this article), the Greek word usually mistranslated as “word” in the New Testament. It is another Greek word that means “remark,” and is the Greek source of our English word. The fact that it wasn’t in the Hebrew but that this “word” was in the Greek is just more evidence that Jesus taught in Greek, not Aramaic. See this article.

Jesus quoted this line when he answered his “adversary” in the desert. The Greek word translated as the devil, Satan, simply meant “adversary” in Greek and the original Hebrew. It was envisioned later in Christian history (see this article) to mean the person of "Satan.” Jesus quoted Moses in response to his desire to turn stone into bread. Moses also spoke this line about the desert, about the bread of mana.

These words are provocative because, unlike almost all of Jesus’s words in the Gospel, these words are recorded, but they were not witnessed by anyone other than Jesus himself. They could only have come from a story he told about himself, but the Bible does not record who or when he talked about this event. The Bible doesn’t record Jesus talking about any events in his life.

Live

The Greek word translated as “live” means "to be alive,” “to be full of life," "to be strong," and "to be fresh." There are several other words in the Gospels translated as “life” but this one alone means refreshed as we might feel after a meal. Jesus phrased this as a negative, "the man does not live."

This “live” was also changed in translation from Hebrew to Greek, but just in form. In Hebrew, it was the past tense, describing Israelite survival on mana in the desert. The Greek version is not the past tense. It is either the future tense or a possibility, something that “might” happen. So, the scholars of the time updated it to apply to the people of their day. The form gives the verb the meaning of “living on our own.” This emphasizes the earlier “alone” describing the bread. The sense is that “life” does not come from our own power alone. That life requires that which is outside of our abilities. This idea is lost in translation.

Outpouring

The “come from the mouth of God” is also sloppily translated. The Greek rendered as “come from” from means “going out” or "departing out" of the mouth of God. The form is passive so "being poured out." In Hebrew, the word is mowtsa that means simultaneously the source of something going forth, the thing that goes forth, and the methods of going forth. The Hebrew says something more like “everything pouring out of the mouth,” which could be the “breath of life” (“spirit”, see this article) as well as spoken words. In English, we might say “outpouring” to capture this. “Outpouring” works because we describe speech as an outpouring.

In Greek, the verse describes how it is poured out, but this is not translated into English. The Greek says “through the mouth of God.” This implies that the “mouth” is not God speaking directly but through a spokesperson, Moses originally, and then Jesus.

This brings us to a more accurate translation.

Listeners Heard: It has been written, "Not upon bread alone does this person live on his own. Instead, upon every saying being poured out through the mouth of God."

Our life is a generous outpouring of the Divine to us, and that our work is a vital part of our living. We also live by the power of the bread we raise from grain to make into food. Both together, the Divine and the bread are needed for life.

Sharing Jesus

This verse addresses one question: can our lives be purely material? Don’t all the pitfalls of life: bad relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, and even overeating start with physical pleasures? It is not that the physical is bad, but is it sufficient? Do we have other, higher needs that we are trying to satisfy? Isn’t physical gratification temporary while its consequences are longer lasting? Are those who are truly happy with their lives happy with just physical gratification alone?

Are we all secretly looking for a higher meaning and purpose? Another way of asking this question is to ask if we are purely animals. Do we operate purely on instinct, living from moment to moment? Or do we have conscious freedom of choice, seeing a longer term, and attempting to build our lives upon something more lasting?

While religion often portrays the physical as bad and the spiritual as good, Jesus doesn’t do that. He doesn’t say that we live by spirit alone. Shouldn’t we consider what he taught: that both the temporary and more lasting forms of life depend upon one another? We don’t even need to trust in an afterlife to understand this.