Much of the following depends on Austin Farrer’s discussion in The Triple Victory .
Why was Jesus tempted in the particular ways He was tempted? The best answer to that question is typological. Jesus is the true Israel, and He is faced with the same series of temptations that Israel faced when they were in the wilderness.
When Israel had passed through the Red Sea at the Exodus, they immediately went into the wilderness and realized they had no water or bread. They began to grumble against Moses and the Lord that the only water was bitter, and the Lord brought sweetened the water. They grumbled about their lack of bread, and wished they were in Egypt, and the Lord rained bread from heaven.
Moses later commented on this in Deuteronomy, saying that the Lord caused Israel to hunger in the wilderness for 40 years, to test them and to see what was on their heart. This is the very passage that Jesus quotes in response to the first temptation of Satan: The lesson Israel was supposed to learn from their abstinence was that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:1-4). They were to learn to rely on the Lord for their bread, not grumbling against Him, but trusting that whether He gave them life or death, He would do them good.
No sooner had Israel received bread and meat from heaven than they again found that they lacked food. They grumbled again against Moses and the Lord, and this time, they added to their sin of grumbling the sin of testing the Lord. Exodus 17:7 says, “And [Moses] named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, ‘Is Yahweh among us, or not?’”
They put God to the test here in the sense that they reserve their trust in Him until He has demonstrated His power. Devastating Egypt, and opening the Red Sea, and sweetening the water, and raining bread from heaven were not enough to win their trust. Like the village atheist who dares God to strike him with lightning, they said, in effect, “You’re going to have to do that again before we believe that You are with us. Prove yourself.”
Jesus alludes to this very incident when he responds to the devil’s second temptation: “You shall not put Yahweh your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah” (Deuteronomy 6:16).
Finally, while Israel waited at the foot of Sinai for Moses to reappear from the cloud, they constructed a golden calf at the foot of the mountain and bowed down to worship it. To lust for bread and testing the Lord, they added the sin of idolatry, throwing themselves before the golden calf, worshiping Satan.
Jesus could be alluding to this very incident when He responds to the third temptation: “You shall fear Yahweh your God, and you shall worship Him, and swear by His name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for Yahweh your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of Yahweh your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 6:13-16), which is precisely what the Lord threatened to do after the golden calf incident.
Israel lusted after bread, and grumbled against the Lord. Israel tested Yahweh at Massah and Meribah. Israel turned to worship Satan. Jesus is faced with precisely these three temptations in this order. And Jesus succeeds in overcoming these tests. He trusts God for His bread, He refuses to test God, He does not succumb to idolatry. He is the true Israel, reversing the sins of the first Israel.
There’s another crucial dimension to this as well. Jesus is Israel. But Jesus is also Moses. That’s evident in the fact that He fasts for forty days. In Deuteronomy 9, Moses refers to two different forty-day fasts. The first came before He received the tablets of the law: “I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water . . . . And it came about at the end of forty days and forty nights that Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant” (Deuteronomy 9:9, 11).
After the people had worshiped the golden calf, their climactic moment of rebellion against the Lord, Moses again threw Himself before the Lord to plead with Yahweh to turn from His wrath against Israel: “I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of Yahweh to provoke Him to anger” (Deuteronomy 9:18).
Through Moses’ intercession, Israel was saved from destruction. And in spite of their lust for bread, in spite of their grumbling, in spite of their testing God, in spite of their idolatry, the Lord led them to a good land and they received their inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey, the land of many nations stronger and more numerous than Israel.
Moses’ intercession was appropriate to the situation. By fasting, he did the opposite of what Israel had been doing. Israel had complained they had no bread; Moses refused bread. Israel murmured and put God to the test at the waters of Massah; Moses drank nothing for forty days. Israel set up an idol to lead them into the land; Moses destroyed the idol and threw himself before the Lord.
And so also Jesus: Jesus doesn’t merely obey where Israel disobeyed. He is faithful where Israel was unfaithful. But because He is the new Moses, because He intercedes by His fasting and faithfulness, Israel as a whole is saved. He keeps the fast, and therefore His people are brought through the wilderness into the land of promise.