– Or its multiple indicates in the Bible a symbolic temple that can be bigger or smaller:
Ex 16:35 : The Israelites ate the manna for forty years, until their arrival in an inhabited land.
Num 14,33-34 : Your sons will guard their flocks for forty years, paying the penalty for your infidelities.
Deuteronomy 2:7 : Forty years now the Lord your God has been with you, and you lacked nothing.
Josh 5 :6 : The Israelites had marched through the desert for forty years.
Ps 94,10 : For forty years that generation displeased me.
Amos 2:10 : It was I who brought you out of Egypt and led you through the desert for forty years.
Amos 5:25 : Did you offer me sacrifices and oblations, house of Israel, in the desert for forty years?
– Indicates in general a time of preparation in view of a great event.
– The flood in view of a new humanity:
Gen 6:17 : Behold, I am going to bring a flood upon the earth, a flood that will destroy every living being.
– Israel in the desert to prepare for the promised land:
Amos 2:10 : It was I who brought you out of Egypt and led you through the desert for forty years.
– Jonah gave the period of forty days for the Ninevites to receive God’s forgiveness:
Jonah 3:4 : Jonah went around the city for a whole day, preaching: “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed”.
– For forty days and forty nights Elijah walked to reach the holy mountain:
1 Kings 19 :8 : Elijah got up, ate and drank; and on the strength of that food he walked forty days and forty nights.
– During the same time Moses fasted before his mission:
Ex 24:18 : Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. He stayed there forty days and forty nights.
– And also Jesus, before starting his preaching:
Mt 4:2 : He fasted forty days and forty nights.
Mk 1,12-13 : And immediately the Spirit drove him into the desert. There he stayed for forty days.
Lc 4,1 : Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert.
