With a Subtitle: Tracing the Bible's repeated forties and threes until they point straight to Jesus.
A brief Excerpt: Rina Schultz follows the Bible – from Ezekiel and the wilderness to Christ's forty days – and finds patterns resolving into Jesus and the call to trust God.
Editor’s note – Rina Schultz reads Scripture the way a curious mind turns an object over in the light, asking what each number and pattern might mean. We run this piece because that posture – attentive, unhurried, willing to wonder aloud – is how many of us were first drawn deeper into the Word. She traces the recurring forties and threes of the Bible and lands not on a numerology trick but on Christ Himself.
Days That Stand for Years
Sometimes when I read the Bible, I look at odd things, and silly thoughts cross my mind. For instance, when I read about olive oil, I wonder whether Popeye is lurking around close by.
Recently, my mind has been occupied by numbers, symbols and metaphors. I’m particularly fascinated by God’s messages to the Israelites when He equates days with years.
I’m thinking of God’s instructions to Ezekiel when he had to act out God’s punishment for the iniquity of Israel and Judah. He had to lie on his left side for 390 days and on the right side for 40 days (Ezekiel 4:4-6). Each day represented a year.
Forty days frequently appear in the Bible.
When the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, they did so for 40 years (Numbers 14:33-34). God provided for them. He was their light at night and their shade during the day. He made sure that their clothes didn’t wear out, and somehow, they didn’t need new shoes (Deuteronomy 8:2-4). Did their clothes and shoes grow with their little ones, or did they swap clothing and shoes as they grew older and taller? I don’t know.
God provided manna, water, and meat in the form of quails (Exodus 16).
Editor’s note – Notice what the days-as-years pattern is doing. It is not a code to crack; it is God stamping His patience across calendars. Forty years of provision, forty days of testing – the same God meeting His people in time. The arithmetic matters only because it keeps pointing past itself.
Jesus in the Wilderness: the Bread of Life and the Rock
When Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, He spent 40 days there (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). One day for each year the Israelites trekked through the wilderness. It’s interesting that the devil tempted Him with bread first. We know from the Bible that Jesus is the Bread of Life (John 6:35; Matthew 4:4). He answers the devil saying that man cannot live by bread alone but by every Word from God’s mouth. We also know that He is the Word that became flesh (John 1:1, 14). Essentially, Jesus was saying that we can’t live without Him.
We may survive here on earth, and even thrive without Him, but it’s for a very short time compared to eternity. He is the only Way to Heaven. Without Him, Heaven will not be our destiny.
Paul said that we are to be pitied if our only hope is here on earth for the short time we spend here. Our hope is in the resurrection and our eternal home with God (1 Corinthians 15:19).
Paul also spoke about the Word of God as meat. He lamented that the Corinthians still had to be fed milk instead of meat. God provided meat in the form of quails.
We are told that the water God provided was from a rock, and the rock was Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). Everything about God’s journey with the Israelites pointed to Jesus.
Editor’s note – This is the heart of reading the Old Testament rightly. The rock, the manna, the water were never ends in themselves. When the details of an ancient journey keep resolving into the face of Jesus, you are reading the Bible the way it asks to be read.
Moses, Repetition, and God’s Pattern of Restoration
Moses spent 40 days on the mountain before he received the stone tablets with the commandments, and 40 days after he broke them (Exodus 24:18; 34:28). Before he led the Israelites out of Egypt he had spent 40 years in the wilderness caring for sheep, and then 40 years in the wilderness caring for the Israelites (Acts 7:23-30). I am amazed that he had to spend 40 days on the mountain twice. It corresponds with his own years in the wilderness.
I have never paid attention to time when I go through difficulties. Does my time in my personal wilderness correspond with the mistakes I had made and the journey God is leading me on, and does it prepare me for my destiny? I’m wondering about this, as God seems to use repetitions for restoration. Peter denied three times that he knew Jesus, and Jesus asked him three times whether he loved Him (John 18:15-27; John 21:15-17). We also know that Jesus said Jonah, having spent three days in a fish before the salvation of Nineveh, was a sign just as Jesus would spend three days in the grave for our salvation (Jonah 1:17; Matthew 12:39-40). Repetition. There are many such examples in the Bible. Why three days? Does it relate to the Trinity in any shape or form? Does it tell us that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are involved in our salvation and our journey here on earth?
Editor’s note – Rina’s honest question – whether her own wilderness has a measured length – is worth sitting with. Scripture never promises us the exact count of our hard seasons, but it does promise that God wastes none of them. The same hand that numbered Israel’s years is numbering yours.
Psalm 91 and the Battle That Belongs to God
The devil quoted Psalm 91, tempting Jesus to jump from the top of a high building (Matthew 4:5-6). It’s interesting that Psalm 91 is a psalm that speaks of God’s presence and protection. Just as He was present with Israel in the wilderness and protected them from their enemies, He is always present with us. Psalm 91 says that if we abide in the shadow of the Almighty we will be safe just as Israel abided in the shade of the cloud in the wilderness. It was the cloud that prevented the Egyptian army from getting closer to the fleeing Israelites (Exodus 14:19-20).
Finally, the devil showed his true ambition. He wanted Jesus to worship him. He wanted to be above God. It was the very same sin that had him expelled from Heaven, but Jesus reminded him that God alone is God and He alone should be worshipped (Matthew 4:10). Then the devil left Him.
Paul reminds us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, and we do not fight against the devil (Ephesians 6:12). We first draw near to God, resist the devil as Jesus did, and he will flee from us just as he flees from Jesus (James 4:7-8). So many of us tire ourselves by fighting with the enemy instead of doing what the Bible says. The battle belongs to God. We need to stand in God’s presence and watch. God is our victory.
Speaking to myself: “Self, stop worrying. Stop fighting. Stop battling against circumstances. Draw close to God. Give Him your cares and concerns. Resist the lies and negative thoughts of the enemy. Speak the truth from the Word, and watch the devil flee as God fights your battles and gives you the victory.”
A Word from the Editor
The piece ends where the Christian life so often must: with a word spoken firmly to one’s own anxious heart. Stop fighting, draw near, and watch. Scripture frames deliverance the same way – ‘stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD’ was Moses’ charge at the edge of the sea, and James 4:7-8 still holds: draw near to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. The battle belongs to the Lord, and our part is to abide in the shadow of the Almighty and trust Him.
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org
This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.