Is there some special significance to the number 40? It seems to pop up a lot in writings. The three I can think of right now are;
Someone went to a mountain for 40 days.
It rained for 40 days.
Someone else went to the desert for 40 days.
All from the bible, I know, but I’ve come across it elsewhere. The old synapses just aren’t what they once were.
So, can any of the many geniuses on the SDMB answer this thought-provoking query?
Peace,
mangeorge
I heard once that one of the cultures involved in writing or translating the Bible over the years used 40 as kind of a shorthand for “a lot.” Kind of like we say “a gajillion” - we’ve been exposed to larger numbers since those days. 
I’ve also heard that the Hebrew word for forty is the same as the Hebrew word for many.
I know some Dope Poster knows the skinny.
Well, thanks a forty for the info. No cite needed, makes sense to me.
Peace,
mangeorge
Now I really feel crappy about being 40…
excuse me, gotta go.
I think I’ll go drink me a 40…
The answer’s always waiting at the liquor store
40 ounces to freedom and I’ll take that walk
Isn’t their some crazy 40 mojo in Bingo too?
Looks like one of those things that lots of people have heard about but no-one can pin down the source.
Way I heard it was the the Babylonians had a counting systme where every value up to 39 had a separate word and that 40 was like infinity.
Why the Babylonians - dunno .
40? Infidels. Heathens. Blasphemists.
42 is the Holy Number.
The Bible text uses 40 to mean many, yes, but it also uses 40 to indicate massive change, generational change or the overturning of an era. When the key number “40” appears, it means that things afterwards are not the same as things before.
Examples:
- Noah’s flood lasts 40 days and 40 nights, and the world has changed massively on account of it
- Moses goes up on the Mountain for 40 days, and comes back with the Law, and the world has changed
- The Israelites wander 40 years in the desert before entering the Promised Land, a generational change
- Throughout the book of Judges, periods of separation are 40 years, again for generational change
Because the Bible text is so often used as a reference by other literary works, the number “40” doubtless appears elsehwere referentially.
Quoth casdave: “Way I heard it was the the Babylonians had a counting systme where every value up to 39 had a separate word and that 40 was like infinity.”
Uh, I’m at least as uninformed on this stuff as everyone else here, but I believe that this can’t be true, since the Babylonians had a quasi-base-60 counting system. It’s them from whom we get our system of minutes and seconds, as well as degrees. Of course, I don’t actually know any Babylonian words, so I’m sure someone else could better explain.
Forty is the only number that has its letters in alphabetical order when spelled. It is indeed, special.
Smeghead: *I heard once that one of the cultures involved in writing or translating the Bible over the years used 40 as kind of a shorthand for “a lot.” Kind of like we say “a gajillion.” *
Yeah, forty was commonly used in this way throughout the ancient Near East. As in this passage from the Epic of Gilgamesh:
And think of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” as well. And the ancient Greek chronologists used it as a convenient biographical approximation: “If the date of some striking event in a philosopher’s life is known, that is taken as his floruit (akmê), and he is assumed to have been forty years old at that date.” Other nice round sexagesimal numbers like 60 and 120 were also used this way: not so much to represent “infinity” or “the most possible” as “a pretty big number that I don’t happen to know exactly.”
But it had nothing to do with the ancient Babylonians not being able to count past 39: they could count much higher than that! (A good site on the basics of Babylonian mathematics is here.) They did indeed have a base-60 (sexagesimal) system; the numerals were composed out of symbols for 1 and 10, which makes it look “quasi-decimal” to us, but positionally it was purely base-60, both for integers and fractions.
Looking around the net I’m finding loads of New Age shit about numerology, vibrations and ‘scientifically proven secrets’.
I found good stuff about the Babylonian counting system and now am a little less ignorant as a result.
I cannot find anything about the significance about the number 40 though for wading through all this other crap.
Help! Anyone got any potentially useful links?
Prof. Nahum Sarna in * The JPS Torah Commentary – Genesis * on Genesis 7:4 (the flood), wrotes that the number 40 is “often connected with purification and the purging of sin”. In the footnote, he brings other examples:
a) Moses’ 40 days on Sinai in preparation for receiving the 10 commandments (both) - Ex. 24:18, Deut 9:11; 10:10
b) Moses’ 40 days of supplication to atone for the sin of Israel through the golden calf - Ex 34:28; Deut 9:18-25
c) Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness to atone for the sin in connection with the spies, who took 40 days to explore the land - Num 13:25;14:33; Josh 5:6, Ps. 95:10
d) Elijah journeys 40 days in the wilderness to Horeb where he receives a revelation – I Kings 19:8
e) Ezekiel lies on his right side 40 days in symbolic atonement for the sin of Juday – Ezek. 4:6
f) Ezekiel sees the desolation of Egypt lasting 40 years – Ezek. 29:11-13
ah, numerology. yuck.
lots of numbers seem to appear in human affairs more often than others…by our own actions or by coincidence (nothing mystical about it)
seven is a popular one. 7 continents, 7 seas (whatever they are), 7 special celestial objects visible to the ancients (5 planets, sun, moon), 7 holes in the head, 7 heavens, etc.
And then there’s the most intriguing number of all: 47.
Ever notice how often the number 47 comes up at the oddest, most significant moments of your life? I’d been noticing that since I was a young kid, and recently discovered there was a whole “47 Society” on the Internet formed of people with similar thoughts.
Just this morning I got in the car headed to work and say the odometer: 47447. I grinned happily for a gloomy Monday morning and said to myself: “It’s going to be a good day!”
Yeah, what about 714? That, of course, is Babe Ruth’s homerun record, badge # on Dragnet, Lemon 714 qualude, mls in 12 oz. Seen it in movies as hotel room #'s, street addresses, ect.