Mark 1:12-13 -- The Number Forty in Bible Studies

The verses here overlap those of the previous entry. These two entries deal with two ideas that I think are both separate and important enough to each warrant their own entry.

One of the commentaries I'm using claims that 40 is a number of "testing and judgment." During the Flood, Noah faced 40 days and 40 nights of rain; after fleeing from Egypt, Moses faced 40 years tending sheep in Midian; the Israelites wandered for 40 years in the desert. Finally, Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days.

While the commentary says these are times of "testing and judgment," I think they are also times of transformation or renewal. In the Flood, 40 days and nights of rain transform the land from a sinful, corrupted place to a newly-cleansed place, renewed to be like it was shortly after Creation. Moses' 40 years tending sheep in Midian are a time of transformation from his previous life as an Egyptian prince into the man who will lead the Israelites out of Egypt and establish a legal system that would be followed for thousands of years and continue to inspire others even down to the present day. The Israelites as a group were transformed as the previous generation who wanted to return to Egypt died off and were replaced by a new generation, eager to enter the Promised Land.

So if 40 is a number of transformation and renewal, what transformation or renewal did Jesus go through? This is tough, because we don't know much about Jesus' life before his baptism, and he immediately goes from his baptism to his 40 days in the wilderness. On the surface, Jesus is being transformed from his previous life, probably as a carpenter, to the life of an itinerant preacher. On a deeper level, the descending of the Spirit on Jesus at his baptism seems like it would trigger a spiritual transformation. Indeed, it is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the wilderness in the first place. (The original Greek ekballo literally means "throw out" or "cast out" into the wilderness.)

I know lots of Christians would resist the idea that Jesus, before his baptism, would have been anything other than exactly what he needed to be for his ministry. Yet it also seems that there must be some clear distinction, some difference between the part of his life that is not recorded in the gospels and the part that is. When Jesus eventually goes back to his hometown during his ministry, they nearly throw him off a cliff. That implies he had become quite a different person than the old Jesus they had come to know. Jesus' baptism and 40 days in the wilderness are often considered purely symbolic -- Jesus went through the motions so that we could identify with him. But I think they may have been necessary, not just as symbolism, but to help transform the man Jesus from his previous life into the Messiah that he was destined to become.

Finally, there is a personal aspect to the number 40 as well. I lost my job in January 2009, and while I was able to do an occasional odd job for some money, I didn't find another job with a regular paycheck until May 2012. That's 40 months unemployed, which certainly felt like a time of "testing and judgment," and definitely transformed me from who I thought I was in 2008 to who I am today. I don't know what that really means, or what the significance of it is. That might take me another 40 months to figure out.

Open Questions:

1. What does the number 40 mean throughout the Bible? What does it mean to God?
2. How was Jesus transformed or renewed in his baptism and 40 days in the wildnerness? What does this say about who he was before his baptism?
3. Is the number 40 in my personal life a coincidence or does it have deeper significance?