Forty and it's deeper meaning

 

http://www.thereligionteacher.com/videos/lent/number-40/

 

I had often wondered about the frequency of the number 40 in the Bible.  Jesus spent 40 days after his Resurrection before he Ascended to Heaven.  There are the 40 years in the desert by the Israelites, the 40 days of rain with Noah and the ark, the 40 days of lent that represent the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert.  Here are the main quotes in the Bible that I could find that mentions the number 40.

⁴ For in seven days I will send rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” Gen. 7:4

 

³⁵ And the people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land; they ate the manna, till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Exodus 16:35

⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.  Deuteronomy 9:9  ²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶ And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Numbers 13:24-26

³³ And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ³⁴ According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.”  Numbers 14:33-34


And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. Judges 13:1
[the birth of Samson]

¹⁵ but David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. ¹⁶ For forty days the Philistine came forward and took his stand, morning and evening. 1Samuel 17:15-17


¹¹ The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.  1Kings 2:11


⁴² The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.  1Kings 14:42


⁷ The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” ⁸ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. ⁹ At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”   1 Kings 19:7-9


Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he cried, “Yet forty days, and Nin′eveh shall be overthrown!” Jonah 3:3-5


Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ² And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. Matthew 4:1-2

To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.  Acts 1:2-4

I have also heard that after Jesus' death he spent a total of 40 hours in sealed in the tomb, although I have no documented proof of this one.

In the Volumes Jesus explains the significance behind the number 40 and reveals that it has occurred even more than I had realized.


My daughter, the number forty is symbolic and significant in my life down here. When I was born, for forty days I wanted to remain in the grotto of Bethlehem - symbol of my Divine Will which, while being present in the midst of creatures, was as though hidden and outside of the city of their souls. And I, in order to repair for the forty centuries of human will, wanted to remain outside of the city for forty days, in a miserable hut, crying, moaning and praying, to call back my Divine Will into the city of souls, so as to give It Its dominion. And after forty days I went out to present Myself to the temple, and reveal Myself to the holy old Simeon. He was the first city I was calling to the knowledge of my Kingdom; and his joy was so great, that he closed his eyes to the earth to open them to eternity. Forty days I spent in the desert, and then, immediately, I did my public life, to give them the remedies and the means in order to reach the Kingdom of my Will. For forty days I wanted to remain on earth after my Resurrection, to confirm the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat and Its forty centuries of Kingdom which It was to possess. So, in everything I did down here, the first act was the restoration of the Kingdom; all other things entered into the secondary order, but the first link of connection between Me and creatures was the Kingdom of my Will. Therefore, when it is about my Will, I hold nothing back, neither light, nor sacrifices, nor manifestations, nor happiness – they are seas that I release from Myself so as to make It known, to make It reign, and to make It loved.”

Vol. 22, Sept. 8, 1927


The number 40, symbol of the time mankind had lived without the manifest presence of the Divine Will, 40 centuries or 4,000 years.  The Jews at that time could trace their lineage back to Adam and the time that spanned was ~4,000 years (,Time Line From Adam to Yeshua.)  The Divine Will is always present but after the fall of man it was not given it's due place, recognized and honored.  In the beginning of his life as a babe Jesus first atones for the Divine Will being dethroned from his seat in mankind.  At the preamble of his ministry he spends 40 days in the desert in order to obtain all the remedies needed for mankind to be able to reach the Kingdom of the Divine Will again.  And finally for the third time after his resurrection he again spends 40 days on the Earth confirming his Kingdom and how long of a time it will exist on the Earth before the end of time.  Reparation, Preparation, Confirmation.  Luisa as well fell under the number of 40.  Jesus explains how it is significant in all preparatory acts.

Forty years and more of exile; virtue and strength of a prolonged sacrifice. Gathering of the materials, to then order them. Happiness of Jesus in blessing His little prisoner daughter. Kisses in the Divine Will. Decision from priests to prepare the writings for printing. Surprising graces that Jesus will give to priests

          My life is carried out before my Jesus in the Sacrament, and - oh! how many thoughts crowd my mind. I was thinking to myself: ‘After forty years, and months, that I had not seen the Tabernacle, that I had not been given to be before His adorable sacramental presence – forty years, not only of prison, but of exile – finally, and after so long an exile, I have come back as though to my fatherland, though a prisoner, but no longer exiled, near my Jesus in the Sacrament; and not once a day, as I used to do before Jesus made me a prisoner, but always – always. My poor heart, if I have it at all in my chest, feels consumed at so much love of Jesus.’ But while I was thinking of this and other things, my Highest Good, Jesus, moving in my interior, told me:

          “My daughter, do you think that my keeping you imprisoned for forty years and more has been by chance, without a great design of mine? No! no! The number forty has always been significant and preparatory to great works. For forty years the Jews walked in the desert without being able to reach the promised land, their fatherland; but after forty years of sacrifices they had the good of taking possession of it. But, how many miracles, how many graces, to the point of nourishing them with the celestial manna during that time. A prolonged sacrifice has the virtue and strength to obtain great things from God. I Myself, during my life down here, wanted to remain in the desert for forty days, away from all, even from my Mama, to then go out in public to announce the Gospel which was to form the life of my Church – that is, the Kingdom of Redemption. For forty days I wanted to remain as risen, to confirm my Resurrection and to place the seal upon all the goods of Redemption. So I wanted for you, my daughter: in order to manifest the Kingdom of my Divine Will, I wanted forty years of sacrifices. But, how many graces have I not given you! How many manifestations! I can say that in this great length of time I placed in you all the capital of the Kingdom of my Will, and everything that is necessary in order to make creatures comprehend it. So, your long imprisonment has been the continual weapon, always in the act of fighting with your very Creator, to have you manifest my Kingdom.
          Now, you must know that everything I have manifested to your soul, the graces I have given you, the many truths you have written on my Divine Will, your pains, and everything you have done, has been nothing but a gathering of the materials in order to build; and now it is necessary to order them and to get everything settled. And just as I did not leave you alone in gathering the necessary things which must serve my Kingdom, but I have been always with you, so will I not leave you alone in putting them in order and in showing the great building which I have been preparing together with you for many years. Therefore, our sacrifice and work is not finished. We must go forward until the work is accomplished.”
Vol. 25, Oct 10, 1928

On the road to Emmaus



Ever wonder what Jesus really said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  In Lukes gospel we are only given the abbreviated form:

 ²⁵ Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶ Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” ²⁷ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. Lk 24: 25-27

But in the Gospel as Revealed to Me, formally the Poem of the Man-God, there is a much more detailed version open to discernment.

"Oh!  how foolish you are and hard to understand!  And how slow you are in believing the words of the prophets!  And had all that not already been said?  The error of Israel is this:  they have misinterpreted the regality of the Christ.  That is why He was not believed.  That is why He was feared.  That is why you are now in doubt.  In high places, in low ones, in the Temple, in villages, everywhere people thought of a king according to human nature.  The reconstruction of the Kingdom of Israel was not limited, in the mind of God, in time, in space and in means, as it was in you.

Not in time:  no royalty, even the most powerful one, is eternal.  Remember the mighty Pharaohs who oppressed the Jews in the days of Moses.  How many dynasties have come to an end, and only soulless mummies remain of them at the bottom of secret hypogea!  And a remembrance remains, if even that still remains, of their power of one hour, and even less, if we measure their centuries by the eternal Time. This Kingdom is eternal.

In space.  It was called:  Kingdom of Israel.  Because the stock of the human race came from Israel; because in Israel there is, so to say, the seed f God; and therefore, by saying Israel, it was meant:  the kingdom of those created by God.  But the regality of the King Messiah is not limited to the small space of Palestine, but it stretches from north to south, from east to west, wherever there is a being with a spirit in its body, that is, wherever there is a man.  How could one person alone gather under him all the peoples, hostile to one another, and from only one kingdom, without shedding rivers of blood and subjecting them all by means of cruel oppressions of armed men?  So, how could He have been the peaceful king mentioned by the prophets?

In means:  the human means, I said, is oppression.  The superhuman means is love.  The former is always limited, because peoples rebel against the oppressor.  The latter is unlimited, because love is loved or, if it is not loved, it is derided.  But as it is spiritual, it cannot be attacked directly.  And God, the Infinite, wants means to be like Himself.  He wants what is not finite, because He is eternal:  the spirit; what belongs to the spirit; what leads to the Spirit.  That has been the error:  that men conceived in their minds a messianic idea that is wrong in means and form.

Which is the highest regality?  God's.  Is it not so?  Therefore, this Admirable, this Immanuel this Holy, this sublime Germ, this Strong, this Father of the future century, this Prince of peace, this God like Him from Whom He comes, because so is He named and so is the Messiah, will He not have a regality like that of Him Who generated Him?  Of course, He will!  A regality which is completely spiritual and eternal, immune from violence and blood, unaware of betrayals and abuse of power.  His Regality!  That which the Eternal Goodness bestows also on poor men, to give honor and joy to His Word.

But did David not say that this powerful King had all things placed under His feet as a footstool?  Did Isaiah not narrate all His Passion, and did David not count, one might say, also His tortures?  And is it not said that He is the Savior and Redeemer, Who with His holocaust will save sinful mankind?

And is it not stated, and Jonah is the sign, that for three days He would be swallowed by the insatiable stomach of the Earth, and then He would be ejected as the prophet was by the whale?  And was it not said by Him:  "My Temple, that is My Body, the third day after being destroyed, will be rebuilt by Me (that is, by God)?"  And what did you think?  That by magic He would raise the walls of the Temple again?  No.  Not the walls.  But Himself.  And God only could make Himself rise from the dead.  He has raised the true Temple:  His Body of the Lamb.  Sacrificed, as Moses received the order and the prophecy, to prepare the "passage" from death to Life, from slavery to freedom, of men, the children of God and slaves of Satan.

How did He rise? you ask each other.  I reply:  He has risen with His true Body and with His Divine Spirit that dwells in it, as in every mortal body there dwells the soul as queen of the heart.  That is how He has risen after suffering everything to expiate everything, and make amends for the primitive Offence and for the countless ones that every day are committed by Mankind.  He has risen as it had been said under the veil of the prophecies.  He had come at His time, I remind you of Daniel, at His time He was sacrificed.  And listen and remember, at the time predicted after His death the deicide town will be destroyed.

I advice you to do this:  read the prophets with you souls, not with proud minds, from the beginning of the Book to the words of the Sacrificed Word remember the Precursor who indicated Him as the Lamb; recall which was the destiny of the symbolic Mosaic lamb.  The first-born of Israel were saved through that blood.  Through this Blood the first-born of God will be saved, that is those who with goodwill have made themselves sacred to the Lord.  Remember and understand the Messianic psalm of David and the Messianic prophet Isaiah.  Remember Daniel, recall to your minds, but raising these from the filth of the earth to the celestial blue, recall every word on the regality of the Saint of God, and you will understand that no other more just or more strong sign could be given to you than this victory over Death, than this Resurrection accomplished by Himself.  Remember that it would have been contrary to His mercy and to His mission to punish from the height of His Cross those who had put Him on it.  He was still the Savior, even if He was the Crucified scoffed at and nailed to a scaffold!  His limbs were crucified, but His spirit and will were free.  And with the latter He wanted to wait, to give the sinners time to believe and to invoke His Blood on themselves, not with blasphemous cries, but with groans of contrition.

Now He is risen.  He has accomplished everything.  Glorious He was before His incarnation.  Three times glorious He is now that, having humbled Himself, elevating Obedience to the perfection of being able to die on the Cross to do God's Will.  Most glorious, with His glorified Body, now that He ascends to Heaven, and enters into the eternal Glory, beginning the Kingdom that Israel has not understood.

To this Kingdom, in a more and more pressing manner, through the love and the authority of which He is full, He calls the tribes of the world.  As foreseen and predicted by the just of Israel and by the prophets, all peoples will come to the Savior.  And there will no longer be Judeans or Romans, Scythians or Africans, Iberians or Celts, Egyptians or Phrygians.  The land beyond the Euphrates will join the springs of the perennial River.  The Hyperborians beside the Numidains will come to His Kingdom, and races and languages will fall away.  There will no longer be different customs and different colors of skins and hair, but there will be an immense bright pure people, one language only and one love.  It will be the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of Heaven.  And eternal Monarch:  the Sacrificed Lord Who has risen again from the dead.  The eternal subjects:  the believers in His Faith.  Do believe, in order to belong to it."

The Gospel as Revealed to Me, Volume10, pgs 274-279.  by Maria Valtorta


Well... a couple of things really strike me from all this.  The first is the stark acknowledgement of how greatly the Christ and Redeemer was misinterpreted by his Chosen people.  Applying human restrictions on a boundless Spiritual Being.  The second is how careful we have to be not to do the same thing again.  Actually we are doing the same thing again trying to make his Kingdom all holy, all peaceful, all glorious, all love, all spiritual into a physical Kingdom that we can comfortably understand with our physical natures.  How often have we met those people that believe that once everyone is Catholic then the Kingdom will come or similar.  But as always God is not limited by our understanding and he acts in a way worthy of the Divine Omnipotent Being that He is.  In the Volumes Jesus refers to each individual as being a kingdom.

“My daughter, it is certain that the Kingdom of my Divine Will has existed upon the earth and therefore there is the hope that he will return again in his full vigor; our house of Nazareth was his true kingdom, however we were without people.  Now you should know that every creature is a kingdom, hence one who lets my Will reign in her can be called a little kingdom of the Supreme Fiat.  So that she is a tiny little house of Nazareth that we hold upon the earth, and for however little being (that) our Will reigns in her, Heaven is not closed for her, she observes the same rights of the Celestial Country, loves with the same love, feeds herself with the foods of up there, and is incorporated in the kingdom of our interminable regions.  Now in order to form the great Kingdom of our Will upon the earth, we will first make the so many little tiny houses of Nazareth, that is the souls that will want to know him in order to make him reign in them.  I and the Sovereign Queen will be at the head of these little tiny houses, because we having been the first ones that possessed this kingdom in earth, it is our right, that we won’t surrender to anyone to be the managers of them.  Whence [with] these tiny little houses we repeat our house of Nazareth, we will form so many little states of ours, so many provinces, that after it has been well formed and ordered as so many little kingdoms of our Will, they will fuse together and will form one kingdom alone and one great people.

Vol. 29, 1931



It is so very true that each individual contains the potential to be an entire kingdom where Jesus will reign as king that he goes on to emphasize later on in Vol. 29 the details of what is contained within each kingdom.

     “My daughter, life, sanctity consists in two acts:  God gives his Will and the creature receives him, and afterwards the life has been formed in herself with that act of Divine Will that she has received, to re-give it as act of her will, in order to receive it again, and to give and to receive, and to receive and to give, in this is everything.  God could not give more of his continuous act of his Will to the creature; the creature could not give more to God, for as much as it is possible for (the) creature, his Divine Will received in her as formation of divine life.  In this way, to give and to receive, to receive and to give, my Divine Fiat takes dominion and forms his kingdom there, and all the interior of the creature forms as the people of the kingdom of the Divine Will, the intelligence, faithful people that glories with being directed by the Sovereign Commander of the Divine Fiat, and the crowd of thoughts that press around and aspire to know always more and to love the great King, who takes a seat as enthroned in the center of the intelligence of the creature.  The desires, the affections, the heartbeats that issue forth from the heart, augment the number of the people of my kingdom, and oh! how they crowd around his throne, they are all at attention in order to receive the divine orders and even to put forth (their) life in order to execute them; what an obedient, ordered people, are the people of the kingdom of my Fiat, there are no contentions, no dissensions, but this entire crowd of people of the interior of this fortunate creature want one thing alone, and as a trained army they put themselves in the fortress of the kingdom of my Divine Volition.  Whence when the interior of the creature becomes all my people, he emerges outside from the interior and augments the people of words, the people of works, of steps, it can be said that every act that this Celestial people forms contains the word, the written order in gold characters:  ‘Will of God.’  And when this crowd of people move in order to exercise each their office, they put forth the flag with the motto ‘Fiat’, followed by the words written with living light:  ‘We belong to the Great King of the Supreme Fiat.’  You see therefore, every creature that lets herself be dominated by my Volition forms a people for the kingdom of God.”

Vol. 29, Oct. 26, 1931

 

May he reign both upon the earth and within the earth of each of us and may his Kingdom come and reign as he ordains.