The number 40 in the Bible — Set Time · Season · Testing
אַרְבָּעִים
Forty is the Bible's appointed season — the set time of testing that transforms: forty days of rain, Moses' forty days on the mountain, forty years in the wilderness (a year for a day), Goliath's forty-day challenge, Elijah's forty days to Horeb, Nineveh's forty-day warning, Yeshua's forty-day fast and forty days of resurrection appearances. Mem is water: forty is the womb-season and the mikveh — you go under at the start and come up new at the end. Expect a proving ground with a promised land on the far side.
Where 40 shapes the story
Num 14:34 — Forty years, a year for a day
Ex 24:18 — Moses forty days on the mountain
Matt 4:2 — The forty-day fast
Acts 1:3 — Forty days of resurrection appearances
Jonah 3:4 — Yet forty days, and Nineveh…
Associations
Wilderness seasonsThe mikveh's forty se'ahThree forties of Moses' lifeForty-year reigns of David and Solomon
Occurrences
Gen 5:13Gen 7:4Gen 7:12Gen 7:17Gen 8:6Gen 18:29Gen 25:20Gen 26:34Gen 32:15Gen 50:3Exod 16:35Exod 24:18Exod 26:19Exod 26:21Exod 34:28Exod 36:24Exod 36:26Num 1:33Num 2:19Num 13:25Num 14:33Num 14:34Num 26:18Num 32:13Num 33:38Deut 1:3Deut 2:7Deut 8:2Deut 8:4Deut 9:9Deut 9:11Deut 9:18Deut 9:25Deut 10:10Deut 25:3Deut 29:5Josh 4:13Josh 5:6Josh 14:7Judg 3:11Judg 5:8Judg 5:31Judg 8:28Judg 12:14Judg 13:11Sam 4:181Sam 17:162Sam 2:102Sam 5:42Sam 10:182Sam 15:71Kgs 2:111Kgs 6:171Kgs 7:381Kgs 11:421Kgs 19:82Kgs 8:92Kgs 12:11Chr 12:361Chr 19:18+33 more in the app