Forty in the Bible

Remarkable coincidences in the number DAYS

Of rain, at the time of the flood

• Genesis 7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

⇒Bible Encyclopedia for FORTY.

Of flood, before sending forth the raven

• Genesis 8:6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

⇒Definition of forty

For embalming

• Genesis 50:3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.

Of fasting

By Moses

• Exodus 24:18 And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
• Exodus 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
• Deuteronomy 9:9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
• Deuteronomy 9:25 Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.

By Elijah

• 1 Kings 19:8 And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

By spies in the land of promise

• Numbers 13:25 And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.

Of probation, given to the Ninevites

• Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

By Jesus

• Matthew 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

Christ's stay after the resurrection

• Acts 1:3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:

Symbolical

• Ezekiel 4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

YEARS

Wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness

• Exodus 16:35 And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
• Numbers 14:34 After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

Peace in Israel

• Judges 3:11 And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.
• Judges 5:31 So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.
• Judges 8:28 Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon.

Egypt to be desolated

• Ezekiel 29:11 No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

To be restored after

• Ezekiel 29:13 Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered:

STRIPES

Administered in punishing criminals

• Deuteronomy 25:3 Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.
• 2 Corinthians 11:24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.