Biblical meanings behind 40 years and 42 months

Okay this is for you spiritual minded folk.

I don't know the answer to this but I am sure some of you will know the difference.

In the Bible, there are 40 years in the desert for the Hebrews. Jesus spends 40 days in the desert being tempted. It is commonly interpreted that 40 is symbolic for testing or a time of testing. It was also a punishment of 40 lashes, but somewhere I heard that they only whipped a person 39 times, or one short of 40 for some reason or another.

Now 42 is interpreted as half of the 7 years or the creation. 42 months = 1260 days which is half. I am sure many of you know all about the various interpretations of this 42 time.

What I would like to know is if anyone has thought about the possibility that the 40 and the 42 are related in some way. Maybe they are referencing the same count and that the difference of 2 means something.

If you call the count a number of months, 2 is 60 days. Since both halves of the count would be 40+2, then with both halves the extra 2's would be 4 which would be 120 days or 4 months, which is described in the bible as the days numbered of man in Genesis.

Anyone have any thoughts on the difference between 40 and 42?

Not specifically religious myself, but I do read a good a lot, and I have a 42 obsession...

Just to throw this in, I think there are 42 generations either leading up to the birth of Christ or including it. I'm literally about to keel over and pass out at the computer from lack of sleep, but I think that if you check the first few verses of the Book of Matthew, it mentions 3 sets of 14 generations. Revelation also mentions 42 as the number of months the Beast will get to reign over the world.

I confess that I am not much more help beyond enumerating more occurrences of the numbers... I am not aware of any link between them (except, of course, 41 ).

/tn.

reply to post by teleonaut


Hey thanks for the point about 3 sets of 12 generations. That may be a good research point to look for. Oh, and by the way, get some sleep!!