Was Jesus hungry or very hungry after 40 days?

Question

The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is summarised thus:

Matthew 4:2 (see for example BibleHub and also Luk 4:2)

KJV: And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

ESV: And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

AMP: After He had gone without food for forty days and forty nights, He became hungry.

NIV: After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

NLT: For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.

MSG: Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting forty days and forty nights. That left him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger... (Luk 4:2 here says merely hungry)

Based on the more literal translations, the original text probably conveys hungry. The more interpreted translations seem to convey very hungry.

Translation philosophy differs, but is the use of the extreme form justified here (and maybe elsewhere) in e.g. the NLT? This may affect the way Jesus is portrayed.

Answer 1

The Greek in question is ἐπείνασεν

which is the 3rd person singular aorist form of πεινάω meaning

• intransitively: I am hungry
• with a genitive: I hunger for or I crave

so the natural translation is he was hungry or perhaps he hungered

Using an extreme form looks like a translator's response to forty days and nights of fasting

Answer 2

The way that the human body responds to not receiving food is:

• initial hunger pains
• after one to three days hunger disappears
• after the body exhausts stored resources it begins to feed off of itself

During this third step hunger comes back with a vengeance. It seems safe to assume that the reason that translators put "very" hungry is that Jesus would have been very hungry!

https://www.quora.com/How-does-starvation-feel-different-from-hunger