LENT – QUARESMA – 40 DAYS
The Forty Days is a commemoration of the Cleansing of the World from Sin through the Great Flood and a new beginning for the human race:
Gen 2:17 [KJV] “And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.”
- In connection with this, the 40 Days and Nights prayer and fasting of the Ninevites lead to their purification and forgiveness of Sins. God didn’t destroy their City:
Jonah 3:4-10 [GNB] “Jonah started through the city, and after walking a whole day, he proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed!” The people of Nineveh believed God’s message. So they decided that everyone should fast, and all the people, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth to show that they had repented. When the king of Nineveh heard about it, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat down in ashes. He sent out a proclamation to the people of Nineveh: “This is an order from the king and his officials: No one is to eat anything; all persons, cattle, and sheep are forbidden to eat or drink. All persons and animals must wear sackcloth. Everyone must pray earnestly to God and must give up their wicked behavior and their evil actions. Perhaps God will change his mind; perhaps he will stop being angry, and we will not die!” God saw what they did; he saw that they had given up their wicked behavior. So he changed his mind and did not punish them as he had said he would.
The Forty Days imitates the 40 days fasting and prayer of Moses on Mount Sinai through which he talked face to face with God and received the Ten Commandments:
Ex 24:18 [KJV] “And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.”
Ex 34:28 [KJV] “And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”
The Prophet Elijah spent Forty Days and Nights on Mt. Horeb in prayer and fasting:
1 Kgs 19:8 [KJV] “And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.”
Jesus fasted 40 days and nights and by doing so the Lord defeated Satan and all temptations:
Mt 4:2 [KJV] “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.”
Mk 1:13 [KJV] “And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.”
Lk 4:2 [KJV] “Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.”
The Forty Days remembers the Risen Lord remained on earth before His Ascension into Heaven:
Acts 1:3 [KJV] “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God”
OTHER MEANINGFUL MENTIONED OF THE NUMBER 40 IN THE BIBLE:
The People of God wandered in the Desert for Forty Years until they reached the Land of Promise:
Dt 8:2 [KJV] “Remember how the LORD your God led you on this long journey through the desert these past forty years, sending hardships to test you, so that he might know what you intended to do and whether you would obey his commands.”
The Hebrew spies sent by Joshua reconnoitred the Holy Land for 40 Days and so during Lent we check and examine our conscience as well as the state of the soul to see how fit we are in our spiritual warfare against Satan:
Num 13:25 [KJV] “And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.”
The Hebrew People of God ate Manna from Heaven for 40 years:
Ex 16:35 [KJV] ”And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.”
Neh 9:21 [KJV] “Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.”
The stripes or lashes to be given to Sinners were limited to 40 stripes in the Mosaic Law:
Dt 25:3 [KJV] “Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.”
2 Cor 11:24 [KJV] “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.”
The Forty Years of Peace given by God under the leadership of righteous Judges such as Judge Othniel and Judge Gideon:
Judge 3:11 [KJV] “There was peace in the land for forty years, and then Othniel died.”
Judge 8:28 [KJV] “So Midian was defeated by the Israelites and was no longer a threat. The land was at peace for forty years, until Gideon died.”
The Forty Years of Punishment given by God to Israel for their Rebellion in the Desert and for their infidelities for which they were handed over to the Philistines:
Heb 3:9 [KJV] “When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.”
Judge 13:1 [KJV] “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.”
The Reign of King Saul is Forty Years:
Acts 13:21 [KJV] “And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years.”