Symbolic Numbers in the Bible

Genesis 7:1-24, It rained for forty days and forty nights. (08/23/21)

Forty isn't as common as seven or twelve, but it's definitely in third place for symbolic numbers in the Bible, and fourth place is quite a ways behind. Forty is used symbolically to mean "a lot of." Forty days and forty nights" means "a lot of days, about a month," usually in the context of testing, hardship, punishment, or spiritual growth. If someone told you that they had had company for forty days and forty nights, you'd know exactly what they meant, and it wouldn't be completely positive. We use ten instead of seven for perfection, and we use the people of God instead of twelve for the people of God, but we use forty days and forty nights just about the same way the biblical writers did.

Quick! How many of each animal did Noah take onto the ark? Bonus points if you answered "that depends."

Exodus 24:12-18, 31:18 – 32:1; 34:1-2, 34:27-29. Moses was on the mountaintop for forty days and forty nights – twice. (08/24/21)

How much time did Moses spend up on the mountain with God? Forty days and forty nights, you say? Ha! That's what I thought, too! Actually, Moses spent forty days and forty nights twice. The first time, after God gave Moses the Law on a couple of stone tablets, Moses went down, found the people partying around an idolatrous golden calf, and threw the tablets down on the ground and broke them. God called Moses back to the mountain, where God gave Moses a new copy.

The second set of tablets has the same set of words as the first, and the text specifies that there were ten commandments. Now this probably comes as no surprise to you, because that's what every picture of Moses and statue of in the whole world has; however, I hadn't noticed this detail before. I admit to always having been a little puzzled by the disparity between the Ten Commandments and the 613 commandments, and I still am, but the Ten are from God. I'm not sure where the other 603 come from – Moses, maybe?

1 Kings 19:1-21, Elijah was made strong for forty days and forty nights' journey. (08/25/21)

The prophet Elijah traveled for forty days and forty nights to reach Mt. Horeb, after running away from his regular job in Israel. Notice that his first goal is to get out of the country, running for his life from Jezreel, in northern Israel, to Beersheba, in southern Judah, which is apparently about 100 miles. That probably only took him a few days, but then he was pooped and had to stop. The food and drink given to him by the angel of the LORD kept him going for about a month on his way to Mt. Horeb, which is another 260 miles, maybe, so he wasn't moving nearly as fast.

By the way, there is a species of juniper tree in Palestine. Translations seem about equally divided between "juniper tree" and "broom tree"; some can't decide and go with "large bush." As we saw with the animal names in the Bible, it can be really hard to tell exactly what plant is intended by some ancient Hebrew name.

Matthew 4:1-11; Acts 1:1-9, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights and appeared to the disciples for forty days. (08/26/21)

I mentioned that "forty days and forty nights" is usually associated with testing, hardship, punishment, or spiritual growth. This is especially clear in the two passages we read today. Jesus' time in the wilderness is an example of testing and hardship, and maybe spiritual growth. The time he spent with his disciples after the resurrection is certainly a time of spiritual growth for them. Immediately after Jesus died, they were hiding from the cops in a locked room (John 20:19, 26); after forty days with the risen Jesus, they were preaching on the street corners to huge crowds (Acts 2).

Jonah 3:1 – 4:11, Nineveh was given forty days to repent. (08/27/21)

God graciously gave the people of Nineveh 40 days of warning about their impending doom. They immediately repented, which pleased God. It didn't please Jonah, however. His reasoning is ironic: "I didn't want to preach to these people because I knew you would forgive them!" We need to be like the people of Nineveh and like God, and completely unlike Jonah!

Deuteronomy 8:1-20, The children of Israel were in the desert for forty years. (08/30/21)

Everybody knows that Moses and the children of Israel spent 40 years in the desert. Did you know that it's about 450 miles from Cairo to Jerusalem? Traveling that distance on foot with women, children, animals, and baggage would take about 45 days, so what took them so long? Weeell, if you look at the story, it didn't take them very long, but the people whined the entire time about God and Moses bringing them out of Egypt to die in the desert, and when they got to the Promised Land, they were afraid to go in. So God said (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much), "You want to die in the desert? Fine! Die in the desert! You can go back there until every man jack of you is dead, except for Caleb and Joshua, and your children can enter the Promised Land!" (Numbers 14:26-35). They were in the desert for 40 years, which is a long time, about a generation. In today's reading, Moses is summarizing what happened and what they (and we) need to remember about it.

Judges 3:1-11, The land had rest for forty years under the judge Othniel. (08/31/21)

When you read the book of Joshua, you get the impression that the conquest of Palestine was nearly complete. Then you read Judges and learn ... well, not so much. The book of Judges shows Palestine as a stew pot on the boil: the children of Israel are all mixed together with the assorted peoples who were already there, and occasionally, trouble bubbles up as a result of the Israelites becoming altogether too close to their neighbors' children and gods. When they repent, God raises up a judge – a charismatic military leader – to overthrow the oppressors and guide the Israelites back to the ways of God. The most typical time for the reforms to last is 40 years, that is, a long time, about a generation.

Judges 3:12-30, The land had rest for eighty (2 x 40) years in connection with the judge Ehud. (09/01/21)

As far as I know, Ehud is the only person in the Bible who is said to be left-handed. That's because it's important to his story. Apparently no one expected a sword to be worn on the right thigh, rather than the left, let alone under clothing, so Ehud manages to make it into the presence of the king of Moab with this weapon. Poor security. Ehud tells King Eglon that he has a secret message from God, so Eglon sends everybody else out of the room. Also poor security. After Ehud assassinates the king, he leads an uprising against Moab, and the children of Israel are free from oppression for eighty years, that is, a couple of generations.

Judges 4:1-24, 5:31, The land had rest for forty years under the judge Deborah. (09/02/21)

In my New English Bible, Judges 4:21 ends, "His brains oozed out on the ground, his limbs twitched, and he died." While that's probably a reasonably accurate description of what happened, I can't find any basis for it in the Hebrew, Greek, or other translations. This is why I want you to read more than one translation.

Deborah is both a prophetess and a judge, and Barak thinks she ought to act as a military leader as well. As we've seen earlier, that's what judges do, and Deborah agrees to go along. After Deborah, Barak, and Jael subdue the Canaanites, the last has rest for 40 years, about a generation.

Judges 6:1-6, 6:11-14, 8:9-17, 28, The land had rest for forty years in the days of the judge Gideon. (09/03/21)

I seem to remember that there are 13 judges whose names we know. Some of them, like Shamgar the son of Anath, get one verse (Judges 3:31). Others, like Deborah, Samson, and Gideon, get a few chapters each. We all know how Gideon, with 300 men, won the day by fooling the Midianites into thinking that he had 300 companies (Judges 7). The rest of his story isn't quite so pretty. For example, he asked the Israelites of Penuel for some help, and they blew him off, so after he and his men won the battle, he went back to Penuel and killed all the men of the city. (Zebah and Zalmunna were kings of Midian.) The good news is that after Gideon defeated the Midianites, the land had rest for 40 years, about a generation.

Exodus 35:30 – 36:2, 36:20-30, Sometimes forty of something really is 40 of something. (09/06/21)

So far we've seen that forty days and forty nights means, "a long time, about a month," and forty years means, "a long time, about a generation." We also saw that the forty days and forty nights are always associated with some kind of spiritual growth or testing, which I had never noticed before.

Sometimes forty is just 40. The plans for the tent of the tabernacle had 20 frames on each side, and each frame had two bases. 20 x 2 = 40. Maybe that could still be symbolic, except that the rear of the tent has six frames, and there isn't usually anything special about six. If six is just 6, then we can be pretty sure that in this case, forty is just 40.

Sometimes we don't notice that a number is symbolic because it's actually a multiple of two (sometimes three) of 7, 12, and 40 (or 3 or 10, which we aren't going to study this time). In Sunday School we're reading 1 Kings, and today 6:1 came up: "In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt...." The footnotes in a couple of Bibles pointed out that 480 = 40 x 12, and 480 years is off from the archaeological record by a century or two – 480 years is probably symbolic of (a) a lot of generations for (b) the people of Israel. Here's the thing: this is one of those issues where it doesn't pay to be too dogmatic. Sometimes 480 = 12 x 40, and sometimes it really is 480.

2 Kings 8:1-15, Sometimes forty of something really is 40 of something. (09/07/21)

Sometimes it's really hard to tell whether seven and forty mean 7 and 40 or "just the right number" and "a whole lot." In this passage, I'm inclined to go with 7 and 40, because I don't see anything perfect about 7 years of famine, and camels are just camels. I could be wrong.

By the way, is this the original self-fulfilling prophecy? The prophet Elisha tells Hazael that he's going to be king of Syria, so Hazael promptly goes home, assassinates the old king, and becomes the new king. What would have happened if Elisha had just kept his mouth shut? We don't know; however, we should encourage people to be their best selves, not their worst selves. That way, if they turn out badly, no one can blame us.

Nehemiah 5:1-19, Sometimes forty of something really is 40 of something. (09/08/21)

Nehemiah was one of the exiles in Persia, a cup-bearer for King Artaxerxes, when he found out that Jerusalem still had no walls or gates after the Babylonians razed the city. This was a shame and a disgrace for a city, and it made him sad. The king said he could go back and rebuild the walls and gates (Nehemiah 1:1-2:6). Well! Easier said than done! Not only did he have the building program to deal with, but the neighboring peoples protested, both physically (Nehemiah 4) and with a letter-writing campaign (Ezra 4), saying that if Jerusalem was rebuilt, the Jews would probably rebel (for which there was ample precedent, by the way). And not only that, but he's got political problems inside the city. So he works on all these problems at once, and it's no wonder that he says, "Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people."

P.S. I got so carried away with the story of Nehemiah that I forgot to tell you: forty shekels is just 40 shekels.

Acts 23:1-22, Sometimes forty of something really is 40 of something. (09/09/21)

Luke is the only non-Jewish writer of the New Testament, and he may not have been familiar with the idiom that 40 = a lot. When you or I say "more than forty," we mean, "I'm not sure exactly how many – 42 maybe? 45? Less than 50, anyway." I suspect that's what Luke is driving at – he's pretty sure the number of would-be ambushers is greater than 40, but probably less than 50. I always wondered what happened to these guys, by the way. Did they starve to death, or just slink away and pretend it never happened?

Deuteronomy 25:1-3; 2 Corinthians 11:16-28, Sometimes forty of something really is 40 of something. (09/10/21)

Paul says he received the "forty stripes minus one." Why didn't he just say "thirty-nine stripes"? Well, there's a reason for that. For a sufficiently bad offense, forty stripes were allowed by the Law of Moses; however, as a precaution against making a mistake in the count, only 39 were ever administered. So Paul is saying on five occasions, he was sentenced to receive 40 lashes.

And that's the end of our study of the symbolic numbers seven, which means "perfect"; twelve, which stands for the people of God; and forty, which means "a lot." Or sometimes they mean 7, 12, and 40, and sometimes it's hard to tell. Read the text for yourself and see what you think.

More Symbolic Numbers
Perfect Sevens
Twelve Tribes
A Lot of Forties

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