The Master Of Understatement

“And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry” (Matt. 4:2, NKJV).

Sometimes I think God is the Master of understatement. After fasting for forty days, Jesus was just “hungry”? He must have been severely weakened by His prolonged lack of nourishment! The lack of embellishment in the text grabs my attention. What about some descriptive phrases like “seriously debilitated,” or “faint with hunger and exhaustion”?

I notice this often as I am both reading the Scriptures, and writing about them. Frequently, they seem to state things in the most basic way possible, with few extra adjectives or vivid words. Like, when God created this breathtaking universe, He simply “saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:25). And when Jesus endured the most heinous, agonizing death of any human, ever, the Bible just quietly states, “They crucified Him” (Luke 23:33) In describing…