Forty: A Biblical Symbol of Completeness

My point is not to dispute the occurrence of a seven-year famine in Egypt. The Famine Stela at Sehel Island in Aswan, Egypt, dated to 250 B.C.E., describes a seven-year drought in the time of King Djoser, ca. 2,700 B.C.E. The famine is accounted to the Nile’s failure to swell and flood the surrounding farmland as was customary during the season of Inundation. While scholars debate the veracity of the Stela’s account, my point is that the biblical story of Joseph is enhanced by artistry. “Seven years of surfeit followed by seven years of dearth” is but one of many literary doubles in the Joseph narrative, the more conspicuous of which include: Joseph’s doubled dreams regarding his brothers; Pharaoh’s doubled dreams; Joseph twice loses his coat; Joseph interprets a pair of dreams (butler’s and baker’s), etc.

See discussion in Elaine Goodfriend, “Seven, the Biblical Number,” TheTorah (2021).

Occasionally, multiples of 40 (i.e. 400 or 40,000) and 4 itself advance a similar function. This article is based on a chapter in Yehuda Hausman, Against History: Essays and Literary Commentary on Genesis, 1-22 (2023).  Full publication data.

The text later reports that this is how long the rain lasted:

^{בראשית ז:יב} וַיְהִי הַגֶּשֶׁם עַל הָאָרֶץ אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לָיְלָה.

^{Gen 7:12} The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

^{בראשית ז:יז} וַיְהִי הַמַּבּוּל אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם עַל הָאָרֶץ...

^{Gen 7:17} The Flood continued forty days on the earth…

Editor’s note: How this timing fits with the other description of the flood, that it lasted 150 days (Gen 7:24) is a major focus of source criticism. See, e.g., TABS Editors, “A Textual Study of Noah’s Flood,” TheTorah (2014).

Alternatively, this could express the duration of time that Moses (a mortal human) was able to remain intimately close to God.

At the same time, though the verse doesn’t restate the number explicitly, this was also the maximum length of time that the people could manage without Moses:

^{שמות לב:א} וַיַּרְא הָעָם כִּי בֹשֵׁשׁ מֹשֶׁה לָרֶדֶת מִן הָהָר וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם עַל אַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו קוּם עֲשֵׂה לָנוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר יֵלְכוּ לְפָנֵינוּ כִּי זֶה מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה הָיָה לוֹ.

^{Exod 32:1} When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.”

For more on forty-day fasts, see Herbert Basser, “Ascetic Fasting and the Dangers of Piety,” TheTorah (2023).

Moses repeats this performance on his next trip up the mountain:

^{דברים י:י} וְאָנֹכִי עָמַדְתִּי בָהָר כַּיָּמִים הָרִאשֹׁנִים אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לָיְלָה וַיִּשְׁמַע יְ־הוָה אֵלַי גַּם בַּפַּעַם הַהִוא לֹא אָבָה יְ־הוָה הַשְׁחִיתֶךָ.

^{Deut 10:10} I had stayed on the mountain, as I did the first time, forty days and forty nights; and YHWH heeded me once again: YHWH agreed not to destroy you.

A 40-day period of seclusion was common across different societies and cultures and is still observed in rural Nepal and Zaire. For an online review, see Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Angell, C., & Simkhada, P. “Dirty and 40 Days in the Wilderness: Eliciting Childbirth and Postnatal Cultural Practices and Beliefs in Nepal.” BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 16, no. 1 (2016): 147. Editor’s note: For discussions of the meaning of the purification process, see Tamar Kamionkowski, “Postpartum ‘Bloods of Purity,’” TheTorah (2020); Zev Farber, “The Parturient’s Days of Purity: From Torah to Halacha,” TheTorah (2017). For discussions as to why the time for the girl is double that for the boy, see Zev Farber, “Postpartum Impurity: Why Is the Duration Double for a Girl?” TheTorah (2020); Kristine Henriksen Garroway, “Gendering a Child with Ritual,” TheTorah (2019).

See discussion in Ronit Irshai, “A Fetus Is Not an Independent Life: Abortion in the Talmud,” TheTorah (2023).

This claim also appears earlier in Deuteronomy:

^{דברים ח:ד} שִׂמְלָתְךָ לֹא בָלְתָה מֵעָלֶיךָ וְרַגְלְךָ לֹא בָצֵקָה זֶה אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה.

^{Deut 8:4} The clothes upon you did not wear out, nor did your feet swell these forty years.

It also appears in the Levites’ speech in Nehemiah:

^{נחמיה ט:כא} וְאַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה כִּלְכַּלְתָּם בַּמִּדְבָּר לֹא חָסֵרוּ שַׂלְמֹתֵיהֶם לֹא בָלוּ וְרַגְלֵיהֶם לֹא בָצֵקוּ.

^{Neh 9:21} Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

Editor’s note: For the unusual mention of manna in this context, see David Frankel, “Were the Israelites Craving for Meat or Starving for Food?” TheTorah (2017).

Deuteronomy even begins with this claim of forty years:

^{דברים א:ג} וַיְהִי בְּאַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה בְּעַשְׁתֵּי עָשָׂר חֹדֶשׁ בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ דִּבֶּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְ־הוָה אֹתוֹ אֲלֵהֶם.

^{Deut 1:3} It was in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, that Moses addressed the Israelites in accordance with the instructions that YHWH had given him for them.

The book of Amos twice references forty years as the time Israel spent in the wilderness:

^{עמוס ב:י} וְאָנֹכִי הֶעֱלֵיתִי אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וָאוֹלֵךְ אֶתְכֶם בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה לָרֶשֶׁת אֶת אֶרֶץ הָאֱמֹרִי.

^{Amos 2:10} And I brought you up from the land of Egypt and led you through the wilderness forty years, to possess the land of the Amorite!

^{עמוס ה:כה} הַזְּבָחִים וּמִנְחָה הִגַּשְׁתֶּם לִי בַמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל.

^{Amos 5:25} Did you offer sacrifice and oblation to Me Those forty years in the wilderness, O House of Israel?

Editor’s note: See discussion in David Frankel, “Lechu Neranena: From the Story of the Spies to the Return of the Judahite Exiles,” TheTorah (2015).

Editor’s note: For a source critical look at the timelines in the two stories, see Staff Editors, “Unscrambling the Scout Story with the Documentary Hypothesis,” TheTorah (2014).

Moses later repeats this in a rebuke of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, whom he accuses of wishing to sin against their brethren by asking for land in the Transjordan:

^{במדבר לב:יג} וַיִּחַר אַף יְ־הוָה בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל וַיְנִעֵם בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה עַד תֹּם כָּל הַדּוֹר הָעֹשֶׂה הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְ־הוָה.

^{Num 32:13} YHWH was incensed at Israel, and for forty years He made them wander in the wilderness, until the whole generation that had provoked YHWH’s displeasure was gone.

The punishment claim is repeated in Joshua’s speech before circumcising the Israelites:

^{יהושע ה:ו} כִּי אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה הָלְכוּ בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בַּמִּדְבָּר עַד תֹּם כָּל הַגּוֹי אַנְשֵׁי הַמִּלְחָמָה הַיֹּצְאִים מִמִּצְרַיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא שָׁמְעוּ בְּקוֹל יְ־הוָה אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע יְ־הוָה לָהֶם לְבִלְתִּי הַרְאוֹתָם אֶת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע יְ־הוָה לַאֲבוֹתָם לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ.

^{Josh 5:6} For the Israelites had traveled in the wilderness forty years, until the entire nation—the men of military age who had left Egypt—had perished; because they had not obeyed YHWH, and YHWH had sworn never to let them see the land that YHWH had sworn to their fathers to assign to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

At this point in the story comes the Song of Deborah.

Following the regnal periods of David and Solomon, which are each given “40 years,” representing two full periods or generations. A third king that rules for forty years is Joash.

^{מלכים ב יב:ב} בִּשְׁנַת שֶׁבַע לְיֵהוּא מָלַךְ יְהוֹאָשׁ וְאַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה מָלַךְ בִּירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם וְשֵׁם אִמּוֹ צִבְיָה מִבְּאֵר שָׁבַע

^{2 Kgs 12:2} Jehoash began his reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

(See also 2 Chron 24:1.) Given its context and style, this is likely an actual historical record.

See also 1 Chron 29:27.

See also 2 Chron 9:30.

Other figures for the Babylonian exile also appear representational instead of exact. The exile is 70 years in Jeremiah. (Jer. 25:12, 29:10) and (seemingly) 70 weeks in Daniel (Daniel 9:24)

Alternatively, W.F. Albright suggests that the Hebrew dor sometimes meant “lifetime.” (William F. Albright, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra [New York: Harper & Row, 1963], 9).

This number is entirely inconsistent with dates given in earlier Prophets (Joshua, Judges et.), where the number is closer to 325 years. Editor’s note: For more on the problem of this calculation, see David Glatt-Gilad, “How Many Years Were the Israelites in Egypt?” TheTorah (2016).

This is not the same as say “young adult” which is generally defined as 20 in the Bible. See, e.g., Exod 30:14, Lev 27:3, Num 1:3, 20.

Ish boshet son of Saul is also forty years old when his father and brothers are killed in battle, and he becomes king of Israel:

^{שמואל ב ב:י} בֶּן אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה אִישׁ בֹּשֶׁת בֶּן שָׁאוּל בְּמָלְכוֹ עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל וּשְׁתַּיִם שָׁנִים מָלָךְ אַךְ בֵּית יְהוּדָה הָיוּ אַחֲרֵי דָוִד. 

^{2 Sam 2:10} Ishbosheth son of Saul was forty years old when he became king of Israel, and he reigned two years. But the House of Judah supported David.

It is possible, however, that this is an actual chronicled record and not a literary feature.

Editor’s note: For an example of when the Babylonian Chronicle and Judean chronicle writing overlap, see David Glatt-Gilad, “Jehoiachin’s Exile and the Division of Judah,” TheTorah (2017).

The next gifts add 110 more animals—including forty cows—falling short of 120, which would be 40x3:

 ^{בראשית לב:טז} גְּמַלִּים מֵינִיקוֹת וּבְנֵיהֶם שְׁלֹשִׁים פָּרוֹת אַרְבָּעִים וּפָרִים עֲשָׂרָה אֲתֹנֹת עֶשְׂרִים וַעְיָרִם עֲשָׂרָה.

^{Gen 32:16} 30 milch camels with their colts; 40 cows and 10 bulls; 20 jennies and 10 jacks.

The rabbinic tradition, which caps the actual number of lashes at 39, emphasizes that forty only conveys a principle, but that the court should evaluate the strength of each person to determine what the individual might tolerate, whether thirty lashes or twenty, etc., but that no person could be allotted forty or more (b. Makkot 22a). See also, Evan Hoffman, “The Melachot of Shabbat Are 40 Minus 1: Cracking the Rabbinic Code,” TheTorah (2014). The principle of a full measure of punishment may be conveyed by fourfold restitution. After hearing Nathan’s parable of a rich man who took a poor shepherd’s only sheep, David thought the guilty party deserved death, but in practice David’s ruling was that “he shall restore the lamb fourfold” (2 Sam. 12.6; Cf. Ex. 22.1).

A seʾah is about 14 liters.

Cf. Ezekiel 41:2, 46:2. In fact, several times in the account of Solomon’s building of the Temple employs multiples of 4 and 40 (1 Kgs 6:1,1,17,37).