Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

FORTY, NUMBER

Symbolic of completion of a process on the four lower planes. Ten signifying accomplishment, and four the quaternary. 4 × 10 = 40.

"How, then, is work perfected in the number forty? The reason, it may be, is because the Law was given in ten precepts, and was to be preached throughout the whole world : whole world, we are to mark, is made up of four quarters, east and west, south and north, whence the number ten, multiplied by four, comes to forty. ... Certain it is, however, that in the number forty a certain perfection in good works is signified, which good works are most of all practiced by a kind of abstinence from unlawful lusts of the world, that is, by fasting in a general sense." - AUGUSTINE, Gospel of John, Vol. I. p. 240.

"The number forty is expressive of a period of probation or trial. The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness, and forty years of bondage they also had to serve under the hard yoke of the Philistines. Moses was forty days on the mount of Sinai. Elijah was in hiding forty days. For forty days the deluge fell, and for yet another forty days Noah was shut within the ark. The men of Nineveh had a like period of probation under the preaching of Jonah. The fasting of our Lord in the wilderness again was for forty days." - F. E. HULME, Symbolism, etc., p. 15.

See Also

EXODUS
GNOSIS
RAIN (deluge)
TEMPTATION