What does the number 40 represent in the Bible?

FORTY = 10 × 4. Complete probation to bring to light good or evil. Moses was forty years in the desert, being himself tried; he was in the mount two periods of forty days, which were times of trial to the Israelites. Ex. 24:18; Ex. 34:28. The spies were forty days searching the land. Num. 13:25. The tribes were tested forty years in the wilderness. Acts 13:18. Goliath challenged Israel forty days. 1 Sam. 17:16. Saul, David, Solomon, and Jehoash were each tested by a reign of forty years. Elijah's period of testing at Horeb was forty days. Nineveh was given forty days for repentance. Jonah 3:4. The Lord Jesus was under temptation forty days. Mark 1:13.

Every careful reader of Scripture will have noticed how frequently therein the word "Forty" occurs in relation to days or years. All numbers in God's Word have a meaning, and I think there is not very much doubt as to the teaching connected with the number forty. It seems to me that it is usually connected with the probation or testing of man, on the one hand, or, in the government of God, with the penalty and judgment of his sin, on the other.

You have forty days twice in the history of Noah, Moses, and the Lord Jesus, and once each in relation to Joseph, Joshua, Goliath, Elijah, Ezekiel, and Jonah. There are twelve in all. They commence at a moment when God judged the sin of man in his own person, and overwhelming judgment swept away the sinner. They close in the days of the Lord Jesus, when, sin having been dealt with and put away by His atoning death, He proclaimed the fruits and effects of His victory for saints and sinners alike.

Now I think every person will at once see the meaning of the term. Probation or testing in connection with the first man's history only ends in failure, death, and judgment. I need not say that in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ it was the very reverse. When He was tested by Satan for the first forty days in the wilderness, it only showed the complete and perfect triumph of Christ over the foe of man. And when you come to His second forty days, in resurrection, you get the most beautiful unfolding of what the Second Man brings in, and what is the fruit of His victory over Satan, sin and death. In resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ inaugurates, during forty days, a new era of blessing and glory, founded on redemption.

Notice, too, the time that David left the retirement of his father's house. Verse 1 6 says that the Philistine "presented himself forty days." Immediately, in the following verse, David's father sends him. Now, the number forty in the word of God denotes the time of trial or testing — man's testing. I will give a few examples. Moses was forty years in the court of Pharaoh; forty years in Midian, and forty years the leader of God's people, Israel. He was forty days and forty nights in the "mount of God." The Israelites were tested forty years in the wilderness. And the Lord Jesus, the second Man, was tested and tried for forty days in the wilderness. And all the time before Christ's advent man was on his trial. This lasted forty centuries — four thousand years. He was first tried in Paradise, and failed. He believed the devil's lie in preference to the truth of God, and was driven from the garden. Outside of Eden he was under conscience, left to himself without God or the Scriptures. The flood, the confusion of tongues and the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah all witness man's utter failure under conscience. This lasted more than twenty centuries. Then for fifteen hundred years God had a people under law. He took them, a nation of slaves in Egypt, and brought them unto Himself. He established them in the garden-spot of all the world. There they had a temple, priests, a ritual, and, best of all, the Holy Scriptures. But they utterly failed to keep the law, and when Jesus, their Messiah, came into their midst, their hearts were full of murder and hypocrisy. The trial of the human race ended with the presence of Jesus in the world. He only came when man had failed and done his worst.

As to the number "forty," it seems to me to have the sense of endurance in it. Forty stripes save one is thirty-nine; for they need a three-thonged rod, so that they could only give thirty-nine by the law, not to exceed forty. It is a length of duration and trial in that way, testing and patience and endurance. So Moses in his three periods of life. Again, Ezekiel lay forty days on his right side for Judah, as a sign, a day for a year, according to the years of Judah's iniquity (Ezek. 4). Jonah's proclamation was yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown; though they did not yet come under the penalty, they were tried. Elijah had been forty days apart, as Israel of old in the wilderness forty years. Here it was till the ark floated.

1884 172 The flood descended for forty days, which number indicates the period of probation: the nation of Israel was tested forty days, during the giving of the law, and forty years altogether in the wilderness: the Lord was tempted forty days: Canaan was spied forty days: Jonah's warning call to Nineveh forty days. It is composed thus — five is the human number (five fingers, toes, senses, etc.): therefore the number representing human responsibility must be twice five: thus there are two tables of law, and ten commandments: one set of duties to God and another to man. Well, let these ten responsibilities be universally tested (that is, multiply by 4), and the result is forty. But then divine forbearance sometimes prolongs the period of probation in which case it is again multiplied by three, the divine number, bringing us to 120: this is therefore the period through which the long-suffering of God waited during the preaching of Noah. Observe that this testing of things, while it destroys all else, bares up the ark (Gen. 7:18) on its face. Judgment vindicates and exalts Christ and all who are connected with Him.

Forty.

40 is, again, but 4 X 10 — full testing according to the whole responsibility.

But we have something more from the Fathers on quadragesima. We have seen Irenaeus telling us that some fasted one day, some two, some several, some forty hours continuously. Now, this last is the real secret of this number forty. Tertullian is a Father who lived in the end of the second century, an upright and able man; so that the famous Cyprian used to call him "the master," saying, Bring me the books of the master. This was the famous Cyprian who wrote a celebrated book about the unity of the church; though he would not yield to Rome on what both thought a vital point, namely, re-baptizing heretics. But this Cyprian tells us that the church in his day (Cyprian. de Lapsis) was corrupt to the last degree; that professing Christians were bent upon money-making, men luxurious in their habits, women painting their faces and adorning their hair, cheating going on in a shameful way, marriages with heathens taking place, bishops leaving their sees and flocks to carry on secular affairs, and making long journeys to gain money, not helping their hungry brethren, but seeking large fortunes, seizing on property by insidious frauds, and employing usury to enrich themselves. In other treatises he insists on the evil state of Christendom.

Another thing we should notice in this sign of Jonah is that he was a sign of coming judgment, as he said, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown". We know that about forty years after the death of our Lord Jerusalem was overthrown. These things are all here in this sign of the prophet. Forty years, as we know, is a probationary period and their doom was sealed when they would not believe.

The Lord had been taken up, as we have seen in the end of Luke; in the first of the Acts we have this re-stated with a little more detail. We read there that the Lord, after His resurrection, and before His ascension, was seen of His disciples for "forty days, speaking to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God." All that He says and does is "through the Holy Ghost." I believe we see here what the Christian will be in the eternal state — full of the Holy Ghost, and acting entirely by Him; and, further, what he should be even now, as "dead indeed to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6:11). We have recorded in Scripture that the Lord was seen ten times in resurrection, five times on the first day of the week, and five times afterwards. He showed Himself for forty days. Why forty? Because forty was the full time of probation and testing. And there is thus the most absolute testimony as to the truth and reality of the resurrection — now, alas! so frequently denied.

Scripture numerals are instructive. Forty is the number of full trial (Psalm 95:10; Matt. 4:2). For forty years Saul reigned. The trial ended with the dead bodies of the king and his sons nailed to the wall of Bethshan by the insolent foe, and the people scattered as sheep having no shepherd (1 Sam. 31). What confidence dare we have in flesh?