Weekly Devotional

Forty Days and Forty Nights

August 11, 2026 · Anne Barkley

Scripture Focus: Genesis 7:12 • Matthew 4:1–2 • Acts 1:3

Recently, God brought the phrase “Forty Days and Forty Nights” to my mind. I wrote it on a notecard and began to pray and ask God to reveal the importance of this biblical period. God began to bring scriptures to mind both from the Old and New Testaments. Someone has said, “Strengthening to the believer’s heart is the subject of Spiritual arithmetic, as revealed in God’s Word.” It affirms to us that One Supreme Mind is the author of all the books of the Bible.

I believe that God is calling us to examine the significance of the number 40 as it appears repeatedly in Scripture to mark pivotal transitions in God’s Plan of Redemption. The number 40 is identified with a period of testing, trial, preparation, and divine transformation.

This duration represents a complete, God-ordained period that removes the old to reveal the new, emphasizing human reliance on God during times of trial. God is calling us to examine how He used “Forty Days and Forty Nights” in the Old Testament, in the New Testament and how He continues to unfold its significance to us today.

How God Used Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Old Testament

The first mention of the time span of “40 days and nights” is found in Genesis 7:12 that reveals that God was so troubled by the wickedness of the world that He planned to destroy all life—with the exception of Noah (a just man and perfect in his generations, Genesis 6:8-9) and his family on the ark—and “rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” It has been said that in Scripture the principle of first mention serves as an unfailing guide to what was in the mind of God. This was an act of judgment as we read in Genesis 6: 5-7, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

The question continues to arise as to the bases of God’s wrath upon not only mankind but all living creatures! It is clear from our study of Scripture that God created His heavenly host of angels. In the Creation account in Genesis, mankind and living creatures were created according to their own kind with unique DNA. It was to Adam in Genesis 1:28 that God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue, it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.” However, the angels were never meant to multiply according to Jesus’ own words in Matthews 22:30 when He taught that in the resurrection, people “will neither marry nor be given in marriage like the angels in heaven.” After the fall, we read about the seed war between the fallen angel, Satan, and the seed of mankind in Genesis 3:15. The LORD God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.” This passage designates Satan as the enemy who seeks to corrupt the seed of mankind to prevent his own destruction. This was the first prophecy in the Bible about the promise of a Savior that would be born of a woman.

This background brings clarity to the words of Genesis 6: 1-4, “Now when humankind began to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born to them, then the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good and they took for themselves wives, any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not remain with humankind forever, since they are flesh. So their days will be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, whenever the sons of God came to the daughters of men, and gave birth to them. Those were the mighty men of old, men of renown.”

For the Jews who first received these words and for the earliest Christians who read them understood “sons of God” as heavenly beings/angels who mated with human women, producing the Nephilim/Giants. In the second century, certain rabbis who rejected Christ launched a targeted and vicious campaign to redefine “sons of God” as mere humans. Christians since the 4th century have unwittingly adopted the changes invented by the Rabbis. The supernatural understanding of “angels as sons of God” undergirded the New Testament’s portrait of Jesus as the divine Son of God and His deity and was reinforced through New Testament writings in Jude 2; 2 Peter 2:4; 1 Peter 3: 19-20. The unclean or evil spirits of the Nephilim recognize Jesus as the Son of God in Mark 1: 21-28 which connect this Old Testament truth to the accounts of Jesus encountering and casting out demons in the New Testament.

There are many other references in the Old Testament of the Bible’s use of the number 40 that stress the theme of testing or judgment.

• Moses spent 40 years in Midian — Acts 7:30
• Moses was on Mount Sinai 40 days and 40 nights — Exodus 24:18
• Moses interceded for Israel for 40 days and 40 nights — Deuteronomy 9:18, 25
• The maximum punishment was 40 lashes — Deuteronomy 25:3
• Israel wandered 40 years — Deuteronomy 8:2–5
• The spies searched Canaan for 40 days — Numbers 13:25
• Israel served the Philistines for 40 years — Judges 13:1
• Goliath challenged Israel for 40 days — 1 Samuel 17:16
• Elijah traveled 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb — 1 Kings 19:8
• Forty also appears in Ezekiel 4:6; 29:11–13; Jonah 3:4

How God Used Forty Days and Forty Nights in the New Testament

Forty centuries (4,000 years) after Adam, came the fullness of time. When the fullness of time had come, the world had been tested. Man had failed. God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law that we might become adopted sons. God sent forth HIS Son. He was a Son from eternity. He was an Official Delegate from the counsels of eternity. The Omnipotent One came down to the impotent ones so that we can become children of God and joint heirs with Christ. (Romans 8: 14-17)

We see two significant periods of 40 days and nights in the life and ministry of Jesus upon this earth. The Bible tells us that after His baptism, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. He fasted 40 days and nights, and the devil tempted Jesus there in His hunger and apparent weakness. (Matthew 4: 1-10) Jesus’ authority was two-fold—as the True Israel and the Second Adam, succeeding where both failed. Jesus faced three specific temptations—physical provision, testing God, and earthly power—which He resisted by quoting Scripture, demonstrating total obedience to the Father’s will rather than seeking a messianic path of power or self-preservation.

Jesus brought victory over Satan: By rejecting Satan’s offers, Jesus “bound the strong man,” proving He is the devil’s conqueror and qualifying Him to serve as the sinless Suffering Servant and high priest who can sympathize with human weaknesses without sinning. Jesus was the seed of the woman that would crush the head of the serpent. (Genesis 3:15) Jesus conquered sin and death by the shedding of His innocent blood upon the Cross and by His Resurrection from death into Life! After His crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus remained and walked with His disciples for 40 days and nights teaching them about the kingdom of God and commissioning world evangelism before ascending to heaven (Acts 1:3).

How God Is Using Forty Days and Forty Nights Today

As we have been celebrating significant dates relating to the 250th Year of our Nation, God highlighted the theme of “forty days and forty nights” in my study. From the Independence Day Celebration on July 4th counting forward for forty days end on August 12th. We can all agree that it has been a period of great testing and upheaval in our nation and the world.

Last week I received an article “Rare Celestial Convergence to Usher in the Biblical Month of Elul.” It indicated August 12th is one of the most remarkable astronomical nights of the decade as a total solar eclipse, the peak of the Perseid meteor shower and a broad gathering of six planets converge around that time. The total solar eclipse will sweep across portions of the Northern Hemisphere and the moon’s shadow will cross northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean, northern Spain and a small section of Portugal. A partial eclipse may be observed in Alaska, Canada and portions of the northern and northeastern US.

For believers in Christ, the extraordinary display offers another opportunity to consider the order, magnitude and beauty woven throughout creation. Scripture declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1) The timing of the August 12th celestial events carries added significance on the biblical calendar. At sundown that evening begins a two-day observation on the Hebrew calendar leading into the first day of Elul on August 14th. Elul is traditionally regarded as a month of repentance, spiritual examination, and preparation before the Biblical fall feasts. According to Jewish tradition, the first day of Elul marked Moses’ final 40-day ascent of Mount Sinai, when he carried the stone tablets, he had cut for the Lord to inscribe again. He returned on Yom Kippur, the day of Day of Atonement, bearing the renewed covenant and a visible testimony of God’s mercy.

Elul therefore begins a 40-day season extending through the Day of Atonement—a period remembered as one of repentance, reconciliation and divine mercy. The month calls God’s people to search their hearts, turn from sin and prepare to stand before the King. In 2026, Elul leads directly to sunset on September 11, when the Feast of Trumpets begins. This is a monumental day for America this year as September 11th marks the 25th anniversary of the attack on New York City—the Gateway to America.

For 25 years mystery and suspicion have surrounded that infamous tragedy as all alive remember exactly where we were on that day and experience of horror and chaos. My personal research going back 18 years indicates that there are many in high places that were involved in the planning and carrying out of that event for ulterior motives leading to war that became known as the War on Terror and the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. It affected and continues to affect innocent lives and led to the Patriot Act that was signed into law in 2001 by G.W. Bush that expanded surveillance abilities of law enforcement including tapping domestic and international phones and invasion of privacy of citizens.

The Feast of Trumpets begins nightfall on September 11th through to nightfall September 13 and marks the beginning of the Hebrew year 5787. The Feast of Trumpets is distinguished by the sounding of the shofar, a biblical summons to awaken, assemble, and prepare. The New Testament connects the sound of the trumpet with the resurrection of the dead and the return of Jesus. (1 Cor. 15: 52) The timing—from the skies of August 12 to the sounding of the shofar beginning September 11 offers a sobering reminder of the Biblical call to repentance, watchfulness and readiness. The heavens may capture the world’s attention, but the deeper question remains whether mankind is prepared to hear the trumpet when it sounds.

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