Luke 4:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, &c., was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, &c. Supposed by some to have been in Judea; by others to have been the great desert of Horeb, or Sinai, where the children of Israel were tried for forty years, and Moses and Elijah fasted forty days. Here we see that our blessed Lord began his ministry immediately after his baptism, not by going directly to Jerusalem, the seat of power, preceded by the Baptist, and with the divine glory surrounding his head, but by retiring into a wilderness, that, without interruption, he might prepare himself for his work by fasting, meditation, and prayer, and by sustaining temptations. Hence his journey to the wilderness is said to have been undertaken by the direction, or strong impulse, of the Spirit, by which Mark says he was driven. See note on Mark 1:12-13, and especially on Matthew 4:1, where the nature and design of our Lord's temptation are explained at large.