Forty

Passages on this topic

From Nave’s Topical Bible (1896), a historical reference index. The groupings are Nave’s; the verses are shown in the text used across this site.

Remarkable coincidences in the number

Days

Of rain, at the time of the flood

• Genesis 7:17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth.

Of flood, before sending forth the raven

• Genesis 8:6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark

For embalming

• Genesis 50:3 taking the forty days required to complete the embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

Of fasting

By Moses

• Exodus 24:18 Moses entered the cloud as he went up on the mountain, and he remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
• Exodus 34:28 So Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant — the Ten Commandments.
• Deuteronomy 9:9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
• Deuteronomy 9:25 So I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said He would destroy you.

By Elijah

• 1 Kings 19:8 So he got up and ate and drank. And strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

By spies in the land of promise

• Numbers 13:25 After forty days the men returned from spying out the land,

Of probation, given to the Ninevites

• Jonah 3:4 On the first day of his journey, Jonah set out into the city and proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!”

By Jesus

• Matthew 4:2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.

Christ's stay after the resurrection

• Acts 1:3 After His suffering, He presented Himself to them with many convincing proofs that He was alive. He appeared to them over a span of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

Symbolical

• Ezekiel 4:6 When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year.

Years

Wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness

• Exodus 16:35 The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land where they could settle; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.
• Numbers 14:34 In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years — a year for each day — and you will experience My alienation.

Peace in Israel

• Judges 3:11 So the land had rest for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.
• Judges 5:31 So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD! But may those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest.” And the land had rest for forty years.
• Judges 8:28 In this way Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. So the land had rest for forty years in the days of Gideon,

Egypt to be desolated

• Ezekiel 29:11 No foot of man or beast will pass through, and it will be uninhabited for forty years.

To be restored after

• Ezekiel 29:13 For this is what the Lord GOD says: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations to which they were scattered.

Stripes

Administered in punishing criminals

• Deuteronomy 25:3 He may receive no more than forty lashes, lest your brother be beaten any more than that and be degraded in your sight.
• 2 Corinthians 11:24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.