40 days of lent

[mfundis]

Hi-
I was wondering of someone out there new of an interesting article, or information of some sort, online about the significance of the number 40 to Judaism/ and Catholicism. I am preparing for PSR class for junior high- and I think they might be interested.

Thanks!
Melanie

 

[JCPhoenix]

The Bible, both the OT and the NT is ridden with references to 40 days.

Moses went into the wilderness a few times for 40 days and 40 nights. After Jesus was baptized, he went into the desert and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

Again, in the OT (I think it was Ezekiel) went into the wilderness, and I remember a reference to sleeping on his right side for 40 days and 40 nights, and then slept on his other side for 40 days and 40 nights. I’m sorry I don’t remember this very vague reference but I do believe it was one of the prophetic books. I’m sure someone with far more biblical knowledge than I can figure this out.

I know there are more but I can’t remember them all.

Today we use this time period with biblical basis for lent, as it was in the Bible it is for us…a time of penitence.

I’m not sure that the 40 day reference was exact, but I believe it was meant to show that the person was gone for a long period of time. In other words, I’m not sure that the history is literal or more along the lines of symbolic numbers, like “one day is as 1000 years to God” or something like that.

Hope that helps!

 

[awalt]

Some more:

Days: Of rain, at the time of the flood, Gen. 7:17; of flood, before sending forth the raven, Gen. 8:6. For embalming, Gen. 50:3. Of fasting: By Moses, Ex. 24:18; 34:28; Deut. 9:9, 25; Elijah, 1 Kin. 19:8; Jesus, Matt. 4:2. Spies in the land of promise, Num. 13:25. Of probation, given to the Ninevites, Jonah 3:4. Christ’s stay after the resurrection, Acts 1:3. Symbolical, Ezek. 4:6.

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[Tantum_ergo]

Found this in judaisim, about:

The number forty has significance throughout the Torah, and the Talmud.

For example, when a person becomes ritually impure, he must go to a ritual bath, a Mikveh. The Talmud tells us that a Mikveh must be filled with FORTY measures of water, and a person, must completely submerse himself in it. After being submersed, he leaves the Mikveh ritually pure. It is no accident, that in the story of Noah, the rain poured for FORTY days, and surrounded the world with water. And just as a person leaves a Mikveh pure, so too when the waters of the flood subsided, the world was pure.

According to the Maharal (16th century, Prague), the number FORTY has the power to raise up something’s spiritual state. Just as FORTY measures of water purifies a person, and FORTY days of rain purified the world, so too Moses being on Mt. Sinai for FORTY days also had a purifying effect, in that the Jews arrived at Mt. Sinai as a nation of Egyptian slaves, but after forty days they were G-d’s nation.

In the Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Jewish people that he had “led them FORTY years in the wilderness,” (29:3-4) after he told them that “G-d has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day.” So we see, it took the Jewish people FORTY years in the desert before they could understand the things that took place. Accordingly, the Mishna in Ethics of Our Fathers explains that “a man of forty attains understanding.” (5:26) (Ethics from Sinai).

Finally, according to the Talmud, it takes FORTY days for an embryo to be formed in its mother’s womb.
With blessings from Jerusalem,

Rabbi Shraga Simmons