Spoke 4

Matthew 4 Numbers

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

Matthew 4.1f

The Hebrew name of the fourth Book is B'Midbar which means in the wilderness. It records the forty years the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. The reason for this exact number is given in Numbers 14.33f:

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.

The idea of wandering originates in Genesis 4 with the cursing of Cain. The exact phrase ("each day for a year") ^[Verify] is found in exactly one other verse of the Bible, Ezekiel 4.9f:

For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

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