17 Jan
The Symbolism of Forty
“I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights.” —(Gen. 7:4)
Forty is a portentous number, for it represents the fullness of time. In general, it is usually a round number or estimation more so than an actual precise chronological measurement of time. As the medium of purification in the Torah, water has a unique power in that it can dissolve all the sundry forms it encompasses. In the realm of ritual, the waters of purification determine a new status, hence a new creation. Rabbinic literature develops this concept concerning the various laws pertaining to ritual purification and conversion.
In the Mishnah, for example, the waters of the mikvah (a “ritual bath”) must contain 40 se’ah (approximately 120 gallons) of water—the amount that is necessary to completely cover the human body as it undergoes ritual purification.[1] Ritual immersion represents a symbolic death for the person undergoing ritual. Upon arising, s/he becomes like a new person, as indicated by the Talmudic dictum, “Anyone who has become a proselyte is likened to a newborn baby.”[2]
Ritual immersion always introduces a change in status. For a priest, immersion enables him to eat from the priestly tithes; for the leper, immersion terminates his ceremonially impure status and facilitates his reintegrate to the community. In the same manner, the Flood lasted for 40 days and 40 nights and served as a means of purifying and purging the world of the violence that had infected it.[3]
Throughout the Tanakh and much of early rabbinic tradition, the number 40 is also associated with dramatic change, upheaval,[4] judgment [5] , hardship, affliction and censure, temptation and punishment, probation, [6] purification, forgiveness,[7] wisdom,[8] redemptive rescuing (as evidenced here) and finally, revelation.[9] The Jewish mystical tradition also sees a profound relationship among all these seemingly disparate nuances associated with the number.
On a psychological level, the number 40 seems to suggest that it is only when we are most broken and humbled we become spiritually open and receptive to God’s revelation and promise of renewal. From a Jungian perspective, 40 also corresponds to the period of life commonly known as midlife, when one often experiences turbulent changes as one comes to grips with mortality and the meaning of human existence. At midlife, that is when we start asking the great questions-even now as we wade our way through the current economic deluge our country is experiencing. Use this time to rediscover the real “You.”
Notes
[1]A se’ah is one-third of an ephah, or from 5 to 7 quarts.
[2] BT Yebamoth 62a.
[3] Sheneir Zalman of Liadi, Torah Or, Parshat Noach, s.v., “Mayim Rabim.”
[4] The Israelites wandered the wilderness for forty years, until a new generation would show the strength of conviction to enter the Promised Land (Num. 14:34). Moses alone spent forty days on the mountain at Sinai (Exod. 24:18). According to the Talmud, if a woman made a vow of a Nazirite and drank wine or defiled herself through the dead, she receives forty [lashes] (BT Nedarim 83a). Actually, anyone who transgressed a negative commandment is subject to the 39 lashes for having sinned. In the New Testament, “Five times,” says Paul, “I received the forty stripes less one” (2 Cor. 11:24). The laws of flogging are spelled out in Deut. 25:1-3; the normal penalty was 40 stripes, and on no account must that number be exceeded, lest the court official be guilty of mistreating a fellow Israelite beyond what was required of the strict letter of the Law. To avoid the possibility of abuse, they always stopped at 39.
[5] Israel suffered at the hand of the Philistines for forty years (Judg. 13:1); Judah’s forty year punishment was foretold by Ezekiel (Ezek. 4:6); Jonah prophesies that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days if city’s inhabitants did not change their evil ways (Jon. 3:4).
[6] Cf. Deut. 9:18, 25; Jonah 3:4; and Psalm 95:7-11.
[7] Moses spent the second forty days waiting to obtain God’s forgiveness for the Israelites’ sin of the Golden Calf; rabbinic tradition claims that this forgiveness occurred on the day of Yom Kippur.
[8] The Talmud states, “A man cannot probe the mind of his master up to the age of forty” (BT Avodah Zarah 5a). As a general Talmudic rule, no one was ordained under the age of 40; a scholar cannot be considered a “rebellious elder” unless he is at least 40 years old (Sanhedrin 86b). One early Mishnaic tradition records that age forty is the time of discernment (Aboth 5:24). Jesus began preaching his message at the end of the forty day period of temptation. Like the Jews and the Christians, the Muslims also made use of the number forty as a symbol of wisdom. When Mohammad was forty years old, during one of the retreats that he habitually made in a cave on top of a mountain outside Makkah, he first saw the archangel Gabriel who revealed God’s word to him, the Quran, and announced that Mohammad is the messenger of God.
[9] Moses remained on the mountain for forty days and nights (Exod. 24:18); cf. Elijah’s forty-day journey to Mt. Horeb (1 Kgs.19:8; cf. NT Acts 1:3; 7:30 both these texts focus on the theme of revelation).
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