'Forty' in the Bible

Then Kenan lived eight hundred and forty years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.

For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.”

The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth.

Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;

He spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose forty are found there?” And He said, “I will not do it on account of the forty.”

and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.

When Esau was forty years old he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite;

thirty milking camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

Now forty days were required for it, for such is the period required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.

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

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

You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards, two sockets under one board for its two tenons and two sockets under another board for its two tenons;

and their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board and two sockets under another board.

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

and he made forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards; two sockets under one board for its two tenons and two sockets under another board for its two tenons.

and their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board and two sockets under another board.

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

Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.

According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, even forty years, and you will know My opposition.

So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, 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 Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked a thing.”’

You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.

When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.

It came about at the end of forty days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger.

“So I fell down before the Lord the forty days and nights, which I did because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

“I, moreover, stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights like the first time, and the Lord listened to me that time also; the Lord was not willing to destroy you.

He may beat him forty times but no more, so that he does not beat him with many more stripes than these and your brother is not degraded in your eyes.

I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot.

For the sons of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, that is, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord, to whom the Lord had sworn that He would not let them see the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought word back to him as it was in my heart.

Then the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.

“New gods were chosen;Then war was in the gates.Not a shield or a spear was seenAmong forty thousand in Israel.

“Thus 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 undisturbed for forty years.

So Midian was subdued before the sons of Israel, and they did not lift up their heads anymore. And the land was undisturbed for forty years in the days of Gideon.

He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys; and he judged Israel eight years.

Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, so that the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for he was old and heavy. Thus he judged Israel forty years.

Saul was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty two years over Israel.

The Philistine came forward morning and evening for forty days and took his stand.

Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, was forty years old when he became king over Israel, and he was king for two years. The house of Judah, however, followed David.

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

Now it came about at the end of forty years that Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go and pay my vow which I have vowed to the Lord, in Hebron.

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

The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long.

He made ten basins of bronze, one basin held forty baths; each basin was four cubits, and on each of the ten stands was one basin.

Thus the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.

So Hazael went to meet him and took a gift in his hand, even every kind of good thing of Damascus, forty camels’ loads; and he came and stood before him and said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Aram has sent me to you, saying, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

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

Solomon reigned forty years in Jerusalem over all Israel.

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

But the former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people and took from them bread and wine besides forty shekels of silver; even their servants domineered the people. But I did not do so because of the fear of God.

“Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want;Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell.

“For forty years I loathed that generation,And said they are a people who err in their heart,And they do not know My ways.

When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.

A man’s foot will not pass through it, and the foot of a beast will not pass through it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years.

So I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolated lands. And her cities, in the midst of cities that are laid waste, will be desolate forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among the lands.”

‘For thus says the Lord God, “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered.

The width of the entrance was ten cubits and the sides of the entrance were five cubits on each side. And he measured the length of the nave, forty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits.

In the four corners of the court there were enclosed courts, forty cubits long and thirty wide; these four in the corners were the same size.

“It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt,And I led you in the wilderness forty yearsThat you might take possession of the land of the Amorite.

“Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.

And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.

for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry.

To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

for the man was more than forty years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed.

But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel.

“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush.

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

But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

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

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.

There were more than forty who formed this plot.

So do not listen to them, for more than forty of them are lying in wait for him who have bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they slay him; and now they are ready and waiting for the promise from you.”

Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me,And saw My works for forty years.

And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?