40 (Forty)
Symbolic treatment of this number in the corpus
Bullinger · Jones
Forty is the number of testing and probationary period: the time appointed by God in which humanity is formed, tried, and prepared for the next stage of its calling. Bullinger documents eight separate biblical periods of forty days or years; Jones develops the composite character of the number as 8 × 5 — new beginning (8) brought about through grace (5).
Biblical References
| Reference | Context |
|---|---|
| Gen. 7:12 | Forty days and nights of rain in Noah’s flood |
| Ex. 24:18 | Moses spends forty days and nights on Mount Sinai |
| Num. 14:34 | Forty years of wandering in the wilderness as discipline for unbelief |
| 1Kgs. 19:8 | Elijah journeys forty days and nights to Mount Horeb |
| Matt. 4:2 | Jesus fasts forty days in the wilderness before his ministry |
Symbolism in the Corpus
E.W. Bullinger
Bullinger describes forty as the number of testing, judgment, and probation: “The number forty has to do with trial, testing, judgment, probation.” He documents eight separate biblical periods of forty days or years: Israel’s forty years in the wilderness (Num. 14:34), Moses’s forty days on the mountain (Ex. 24:18), Elijah’s forty days to Horeb (1Kgs. 19:8), and Christ’s forty days of fasting (Matt. 4:2). Even the human gestation period of two hundred and eighty days (forty times seven) reflects this pattern in nature: the probationary time of preparation for new life. 1
Stephen E. Jones
Jones analyses forty as 8 × 5: eight is the number of new beginning, five is the number of grace. Forty thus describes the grace-filled period of testing that prepares for a new beginning. He identifies eight biblical forty-day or forty-year periods and develops the prophetic-historical framework: the forty jubilee periods of the Church in the wilderness (AD 33–1993) as one great period of testing on the way to the Feast of Tabernacles. Moses’s life encompassed three periods of forty years — forty years in the Egyptian court, forty years as a shepherd in Midian, and forty years as Israel’s deliverer in the wilderness — functioning as a prophetic type of the human probationary period in three stages. 2
Composite Use
Jones treats forty as 8 × 5: the product of new beginning (8) and grace (5). The probationary period is in his framework not a neutral passage of time, but a grace-borne path toward a new beginning. Bullinger does not factor forty explicitly, but documents eight periods of forty as a coherent biblical pattern. 3