Strengthen your faith in God's word

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham” (Genesis 22:1). “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13).

In the English of the KJV, “tempt” has two senses: to try or prove, and to entice to evil. Webster’s 1828 dictionary gives both, citing these very verses: “In Scripture, to try; to prove; to put to trial for proof. God did tempt Abraham” and “to incite or solicit to an evil act … Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed” (James 1:14). Hebrew nissah in Genesis 22:1 means to test or prove; Hebrews 11:17 tells the same event: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac.”

James says what temptation to sin is, and where it comes from: a man “is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed” (James 1:14). God never does that. But God does prove His people, “to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no” (Deuteronomy 8:2), and James himself says, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life” (James 1:12). Abraham’s trial was that kind, and he came out of it with the promise sworn by God Himself (Genesis 22:16–18).

Modern versions change the word to “tested.” The KJV keeps one English word where the passages share one Greek and Hebrew idea, in the sense the word had in 1611.