To TEST — and to TEMPT. One Greek word covers both English ones: to put to the proof (as metal is assayed, or as God 'tested' Abraham) and to solicit toward evil. ⚠ Matthew 4:1 needs both senses at once and English cannot hold them: the devil is tempting, and the Spirit who leads Jesus there is proving. This translation reads 'tested' because the passage Jesus quotes in reply is itself about a testing — Deuteronomy 8:2, 'to test you, to know what was in your heart' — while noting that the other sense is live in the same word. The intensified form ekpeirazō appears three verses later in Jesus' answer, pointed the other way: the one thing forbidden is for a man to test GOD (Deuteronomy 6:16, 'as you tested him at Massah' — Massah being simply the Hebrew word for 'testing', a place named after the offence). → first discussed at Matt 4:1