Forty days and forty nights in the Bible and its significance in the modern era

What Does the Bible Say About Forty Days and Forty Nights? It is clear that the period of “forty days and forty nights” holds significant importance in the Bible, being mentioned in 24 instances throughout the Scriptures. From the forty days and forty nights Moses spent in the wilderness receiving the Ten Commandments to the same duration Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted by Satan.

Below are some of the Bible quotes about this recurring number. To discover the meaning and importance of forty days for Christians today, keep reading!

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Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Bible

Genesis 7:4: “For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”

Genesis 7:17: “The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.”

Exodus 24:18: “Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.”

Exodus 34:28: “So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”

1 Kings 19:8: “And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.”

Luke 4:1-2: “Jesus, full of 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 were ended, he was hungry.”

Mark 1:13: “And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.”

Acts 1:3: “He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”

Why Did Jesus Fast for Forty Days?

After Jesus was baptized by John, he immediately went to the wilderness and fasted for forty days. During this time, he was tempted by Satan three times: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry…” (Matthew 4:1-2)

The Apostle Matthew primarily wrote his Gospel to evangelize and proclaim Christianity to the Jews, and thus, often deliberately showed his Jewish audience signs of fulfilled prophecies and typologies that revealed Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews.

Before reporting the Lord’s fasting in the wilderness, the Apostle Matthew indicates how our Lord, the Son of God, symbolically recapitulates the history of another “son” of God, Israel, by linking the Lord’s journey to Israel’s exodus with a quote from Hosea 11:1: “Then he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.'” (Matthew 2:14-15)

Christ, Jesus Christ, fulfilled all the commandments, which were often not kept in Israel’s history. Their forty-year wandering in the wilderness was due to their rebellion and sins, but our Lord spent forty days in the wilderness in perfect obedience to the commandments, and notably, fasted without complaint, while the Jews in the wilderness constantly complained about the food they ate.

The Importance of Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Contemporary Church

Father Charles Nicholas Baz provides an excellent explanation of the importance of forty days in the lives of today’s Christians, following the teachings and examples of the Bible, and says:

“The forty-day period is originally biblical because it comes from there, and that’s why it is observed. As for explaining its meaning, I prefer to use the following definition: ‘The forty-day period represents completion in the fulfillment of an event.’ … When something, especially an event, is practiced and remembered for 40 days, it makes it real and present in our daily lives. It is sealed in our actions and engraved in our memory…”

The Advent season (November 15 to December 25) is typically observed for forty days to make the daily presence of Christ real in our lives…

There are other seasons in the church, either religious or personal, that take the form of forty days… This is simply a process we call the sanctification of time. When sanctification of time is done conscientiously, it makes the elements we celebrate or commemorate in our daily lives real. Thus, we can establish a better connection with the Bible and the religious life of our faith. By following the biblical examples of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Christ, we still use the forty-day period to prepare for the birth of Christ, through Advent, and the resurrection of Christ, through Lent.”