41 Bible Verses about The Number Forty

Then on the first day’s walk, Jonah began to go through the city, and he called out and said, “Forty days more [remain] and [then] Nineveh will be overthrown!”

For in seven days I am going to cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy (blot out, wipe away) every living thing that I have made from the surface of the earth.” So Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood (deluge) of water came on the earth [covering all of the land]. read more.
Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark to escape the flood waters. Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and fowls and everything that crawls on the ground, they came [motivated by God] into the ark with Noah two by two, the male and the female, just as God had commanded Noah. And after the seven days [God released the rain and] the floodwaters came on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that same day all the fountains of the great deep [subterranean waters] burst open, and the windows and floodgates of the heavens were opened. It rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights.

At the end of [another] forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;

Moses entered the midst of the cloud and went up the mountain; and he was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water. The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were written all the words which the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. It came about at the end of forty days and forty nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. read more.
Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made (cast) a molten image for themselves.’ Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are stiff-necked (stubborn, obstinate) people. Let Me alone, so that I may destroy them and wipe out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ “So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. And I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God. You had made for yourselves a molten calf (idol). You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you. So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my two hands and smashed them before your very eyes! Then, as before, I fell down before the Lord for [another] forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water, because of all the sin you had committed by doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.

Then Jesus was led by the [Holy] Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After He had gone without food for forty days and forty nights, He became hungry.

He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted [to do evil] by Satan; and He was with the wild animals, and the angels ministered continually to Him.

Now Jesus, full of [and in perfect communication with] the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they ended, He was hungry.

When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,

The Philistine [Goliath] came out morning and evening, and took his stand for forty days.

So he got up and ate and drank, and with the strength of that food he traveled forty days and nights to Horeb (Sinai), the mountain of God.

To these [men] He also showed Himself alive after His suffering [in Gethsemane and on the cross], by [a series of] many infallible proofs and unquestionable demonstrations, appearing to them over a period of forty days and talking to them about the things concerning the kingdom of God.

According to the number of days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], forty days, for each day, you shall bear and suffer a year for your sins and guilt, for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement because of your sin].

So the Lord’s anger was kindled against the sons of Israel (Jacob) and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the entire generation of those who had done evil in the sight of the Lord was destroyed.

For the Israelites walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, that is, the men of war who came out of Egypt, died because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord; to them the Lord had sworn [an oath] that He would not let them see the land which He had promised to their fathers to give us, a land [of abundance] flowing with milk and honey.

“For forty years I was grieved and disgusted with that generation,
And I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not acknowledge or regard My ways.’

Where your fathers tried Me by testing [My forbearance and tolerance],
And saw My works for forty years
[And found I stood their test].

“Therefore I was angered with this generation,
And I said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways [nor become progressively better and more intimately acquainted with them]’;

So I swore [an oath] in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest [the promised land].’” read more.
Take care, brothers and sisters, that there not be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to trust and rely on the Lord, a heart] that turns away from the living God. But continually encourage one another every day, as long as it is called “Today” [and there is an opportunity], so that none of you will be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [its cleverness, delusive glamour, and sophistication]. For we [believers] have become partakers of Christ [sharing in all that the Messiah has for us], if only we hold firm our newborn confidence [which originally led us to Him] until the end, while it is said,

“Today [while there is still opportunity] if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your heart, as when they provoked Me [in the rebellion in the desert at Meribah].” For who were they who heard and yet provoked Him [with rebellious acts]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies were scattered in the desert?

The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they reached an inhabited land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known about your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.”’

And you shall remember [always] all the ways which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart (mind), whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and allowed you to be hungry and fed you with manna, [a substance] which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, so that He might make you understand [by personal experience] that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years.

I have led you in the wilderness forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet.

“Indeed, for forty years You sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing,
Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

“Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,
And I led you forty years through the wilderness
That you might possess the land of the Amorite.

This man led them out [of Egypt] after performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

For a period of about forty years He put up with their behavior in the wilderness.

Now Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Although Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eyesight was not dim, nor his natural strength abated.

But when he reached the age of forty, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one [of them] being treated unfairly, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking and killing the Egyptian. He expected his countrymen to understand that God was granting them freedom through him [assuming that they would accept him], but they did not understand. read more.
Then on the next day he suddenly appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you wrong one another?’ But the man who was injuring his neighbor pushed Moses away, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this remark Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons. “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush.

And the land was at rest [from oppression for] forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died.

“So let all Your enemies perish, O Lord;
But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might.”

And the land was at rest for forty years.

So Midian was subdued and humbled before the sons of Israel, and they no longer lifted up their heads [in pride]. And the land was at rest for forty years in the days of Gideon.

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backwards by the side of the [city] gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was old and heavy. He had judged Israel for forty years.

David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years.

The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years: he reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

The time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

The time Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

Solomon reigned forty years in Jerusalem over all Israel.

In the seventh year of Jehu [king of Israel], Jehoash became king [over Judah], and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah from Beersheba.

Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.