Forty

Testing and Probation

And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.—Genesis 7:12

Michael Nekora

The names given to various people in the Bible are usually meaningful. So too are numbers. One of the more prominent numbers is forty which appears first in Scripture when God brought a flood of waters upon the earth.

According to the Companion Bible forty is the number of probation. Probation is defined as “a process or period in which a person’s fitness, as for membership in a working or social group, is tested.” The forty-day rain may have been a test of those inside the ark; it was more like a judgment upon those outside the ark.

After Jesus was baptized by John, he “was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1, 2, NIV). The prophet Elijah had a similar forty-day experience (1 Kings 19:8) as did Moses (Exodus 24:18).

Moses’ long forty-day communion with God in the mount was not so much a test of him as it was of those who were left behind. It was a test they failed: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto” (Exodus 32:7,8).

One would think after such a serious failure Israel would be extremely careful to not allow a lack of faith to ever again interfere with their relationship with God. But soon afterward there is the incident of the spies who spent forty days exploring the promised land. Although the spies were unanimous in saying it was a good land, ten said the nation was too weak to take it. Then Joshua and Caleb speak: “The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. … But all the congregation bade stone them with stones.”—Numbers 14:7,8,10

To punish the people for such terrible behavior God invoked another forty: “As for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. 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 14:32-34, RSV).

Eventually Israel did enter the land. At first they are led by judges, but they want a king like their heathen neighbors and God gave them Saul. It was during Saul’s reign that there was great confrontation between the Philistines and Israel. Each had stationed its army opposite the other. Every day the same drama occurred: “And the Philistine [Goliath] drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days” (1 Samuel 17:16).

Forty shows this is a test, but a test of whom? It was a test of Saul and he failed it miserably. Goliath was “head and shoulders” taller than any other Philistine. Whom did he expect to fight? Certainly it would be the one who was “head and shoulders” taller than all the other Israelites and that man was Saul (see 1 Samuel 9:2). But Saul did not want to die at Goliath’s hands so he stayed in his tent and the people were terrified. Saul failed his test.

The first three kings of Israel all reigned the same length of time: forty years. We can see in the life of each of these kings a picture of the world’s three major ages which are periods of probation for different peoples.

The Jewish Age

“And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul … by the space of forty years” (Acts 13:21). At the very beginning of Saul’s reign he showed great promise. At a wonderful victory over the Ammonites Saul correctly said, “The Lord has wrought salvation in Israel” (1 Samuel 11:13).

Likewise the nation of Israel started off well. It celebrated the passover, left Egyptian slavery in an exodus, passed through the Red Sea, and agreed to all the things that God had commanded through Moses. But its continued experiences as God’s chosen people put them on trial and they did not do well. Saul, picturing those of the Jewish age, started well but quickly changed.

Why didn’t God supernaturally drive out all of Israel’s enemies from the land? It was “to prove Israel” (see Judges 3:1,4,7). It was during the second year of Saul’s reign that the events of 1 Samuel 13 took place. Saul took two thousand men and went to a place and did nothing; his son Jonathan took one thousand men and attacked a Philistine garrison. This enraged the Philistines and they prepared for war:

“And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude … When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people were distressed), then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. … As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.”—1 Samuel 13:5-7

This abandonment of faith in God by the people and Saul so soon after they had embraced him mirrors the abandonment of faith by the Jews in the time of Moses. It was at this time that Saul made a key error. He personally offered a burnt sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel to appear and do it, something he knew he should not do. When Samuel did appear, he said to Saul, “Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee” (1 Samuel 13:13,14).

Who was this “man after God’s own heart” that was destined to be “captain over God’s people”? It was David, but the remarkable fact is that David would not be born until some eight years later. Similarly the period of the unfaithfulness of the Jews during the Jewish age would end when the “greater than David” would appear, though that would be a long time in the future.

The unfaithfulness of Saul stands in marked contrast to the faithfulness of his son Jonathan. The Philistines were so much in control that if the Israelites wanted something made of iron, they had to go to the Philistines to get it. In all of Israel only Saul and Jonathan possessed an iron sword (1 Samuel 13:19,22). So the weapons of Israel had to have been bows and arrows, and slings such as the kind David used to slay Goliath.

Saul had no interest in using his sword, but it is different with Jonathan. He decided that God can save by a few as easily as by many so he and his armor bearer went boldly to the Philistine camp. They slew the first soldiers they met, twenty in all. Panic, which appears to have been partially induced by an earthquake, seized the enemy. Soon the Philistines were slaying each other. It was a wonderful display of faith on Jonathan’s part making him a picture of the entire class of the faithful we call ancient worthies. Although Jonathan was at least twice David’s age when he died, he had a wonderful respect and love for the one he knew God had chosen to lead the people.

Saul and Jonathan died at the same time. Absolutely nothing had been accomplished. The land was still under the hand of an oppressive foe. Likewise the Jewish age brought no enduring benefit to anyone. Sin and death continued to reign and oppress mankind.

The Gospel Age

“David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years” (2 Samuel 5:4). This brings us to the age when God’s son—the greater than David—and the church (spiritual Israel) are on trial. David had the same faith as Jonathan. The animosity Saul had for David illustrates the hatred the Jewish leaders had for the antitypical David. When the Sadducees and Pharisees [pictured by Saul] were confronted with “one after God’s own heart,” they killed him. But we read that the “soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1).

In Acts we read of a forty-day period following the resurrection of Jesus: “To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Perhaps this was a kind of testing and training period for the disciples to see if their faith in God would remain strong.

Under King David the grip of Israel’s enemies was finally broken. But note that the actual construction of the temple, the symbol of God’s presence with the people, was not done during David’s reign. That work was left for the next king under whom Israel enjoyed the most peaceful and prosperous period in its history.

The Millennial Age

“The time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years” (1 Kings 11:42). Solomon’s reign pictures the Millennial age, a time of peace and great blessing for mankind. This is when the Lord’s house will be built. Solomon described his state of peace in a letter sent to King Hiram asking for building supplies: “You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor misfortune. And so I purpose to build a house for the name of the Lord my God” (1 Kings 5:3-5, RSV).

Even though the kingdom age is a time of blessing, resurrected mankind will still be on probationary trial for life. They must learn and practice righteousness. At the very end of the Bible we read what happens to those who learn their lessons well: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14).

Those who fail their “probation” will not be rewarded with everlasting life. In fact they will be destroyed with the devil and his followers: “And … fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” (Revelation 20:9).

Our Forty Years

How long do the followers of Christ live today? To some extent it depends upon where one lives. In Russia the average life expectancy of a male is only fifty-eight years. That is less than in many countries, but not too long ago it was a typical life span in most countries. If someone consecrated himself to the Lord in his twenties, he might expect at most a forty-year walk in the narrow way. This would be his period of education, testing, and probation. True, some today may have more, some less, but we would not be far wrong to say that a person usually has forty years for testing and development as a new creature. What progress are we making in our walk along the narrow way so far?

We are in the school of Christ. When we go to school, we are expected to learn. Paul said there were some, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). Have we grown in faith and trust, or have we allowed something [or someone] to distract us from the special relationship God has permitted us to enjoy? Those in school are always tested to determine how much they have learned. Our consecrated life is a life of probation—“A process in which a person’s fitness, as for membership in a group, is tested.”

The calling we have received from God will never be repeated in a future age for anyone else. Let us learn our lessons well so that when we are tested, we, as good stewards, will be found faithful (1 Corinthians 4:2).

“And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: and he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; the God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, my refuge, my savior. … God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.”—2 Samuel 22:1-3, 33).

At the end of our life, may we like David, sing this song of victory knowing full well that the victories we have enjoyed have been given to us by the Lord.