730. The fact that forty days and nights is a symbol for how long their trials last stands out clearly from the Lord's Word.

The use of forty as a symbol for the length that times of trial last comes from the fact that the Lord submitted to being tested for forty days, as shown in Matthew 4:1-2; Luke 4:2; and Mark 1:13. Each and every tradition established in the Jewish church, and in all the other representative churches that preceded the Lord's Coming, foreshadowed him. ¹ So the forty days and nights did too, representing and symbolizing every time of struggle in general, and the length that any one time of struggle lasts in particular.

When we are being tried, we experience the devastation or stripping away of everything self-centered and bodily. What is self-centered and bodily has to die — and die through combat and struggle — before we can be reborn as a new being, or in other words, as a spiritual and heavenly being. Because of this, forty days and nights also symbolize the length of time that devastation lasts. They do so here, in a verse that deals with both the trials of the people in the new church known as Noah and the devastation of the pre-Flood people.

[2] The symbolism of forty as the duration of both trials and devastation, whether long or short, can be seen in Ezekiel:

You shall lie on your right side and carry the wickedness of the house of Judah forty days; a day for each year is the [task] I have set for you. (Ezekiel 4:6)

Forty stands for the length of time the devastation of the Jewish church lasted. It stands also as a representation of the Lord's struggles, since it says that he was to carry the wickedness of the house of Judah. In the same author:

I will turn the land of Egypt into wastelands, a ruinous wasteland. It will not be traversed by a human foot, nor will an animal's foot traverse it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a ruin in the middle of ruined lands; and its cities in the midst of wasted cities will be a lonely place for forty years. (Ezekiel 29:10-11, 12)

Again forty stands for the time it takes for them to be devastated (or laid waste) and ruined. On a deeper plane it positively does not mean forty years but only the overall process by which faith is brought to ruin, whether this takes a short or long time. In John:

Throw out the courtyard that is within the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations, which will trample the holy city for forty-two months. (Revelation 11:2)

[3] And in the same author:

The beast was given a mouth speaking grand things and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for forty-two months. (Revelation 13:5)

Here the number stands for the course that devastation runs, since it certainly does not mean a period of forty-two months, as anyone can see.

This time the number mentioned is forty-two, which is the same as forty, for the following reason. Seven days symbolize the end of devastation and a new start while six symbolizes hard work, from the six days of labor or combat. Seven multiplied by six, then, produces forty-two, symbolizing the length of time devastation lasts and the length of time struggles or labor and conflict last for those who are being reborn. This period contains something holy. The round number of forty is a substitute for the exact figure of forty-two, as is clear from the above places in the Book of Revelation.

[4] The fact that the Israelite people wandered in the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of Canaan likewise represented and symbolized the duration of hardship and also of devastation. The former was represented and symbolized by the fact that they did eventually enter the holy land. The latter was represented and symbolized by the fact that everyone who had passed the age of twenty by the time of leaving Egypt, except for Joshua and Caleb, died in the wilderness. Hardships are meant by the things against which the people murmured so many times, and devastation is meant by the plagues and deaths that so often struck.

The symbolism of these events as trials and devastation will be shown where the relevant passages are explained, the Lord's divine mercy permitting. ² Moses speaks of them this way:

Remember all the path that Jehovah your God led you on these forty years in the wilderness to afflict you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 16)

Moses' forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai are again a symbol for the length of time that struggle lasts, or for the testing of the Lord, as is clear in Moses:

He was on Mount Sinai forty days and forty nights, not eating bread, not drinking water, pleading for the people that they not be destroyed. (Deuteronomy 9:9, 11, 18, 25-29; 10:10; Numbers 14:33-34, 35; 32:8-14)

[5] The reason forty days symbolize the duration of struggles, as noted, is that the Lord allowed himself to be tried by the Devil for forty days. Since everything represented the Lord, if the angels were thinking about trial, that idea was represented visually in the world of spirits by the kinds of things that exist in the world. All the thoughts angels have are made visible in representative form when they pass down into the world of spirits. So the number forty served for the idea of adversity, since the Lord would struggle for forty days. (To the Lord, and consequently to the angels in heaven, the future is the same as the present. What is to come is already here, or what will happen is already an accomplished fact.) This is why the number forty in the representative church was able to represent times of trial, and of devastation as well.

But these things cannot yet be grasped in a satisfactory way, since no one knows about the influence the angelic heavens have on the world of spirits or the fact that the influence works this way.

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