Numbers 14:33

14:33 and your children will wander ¹  in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, ²  until your dead bodies lie finished ³  in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 8:2

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ⁴  has brought you these forty years through the desert ⁵  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 8:4

8:4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years.

Joshua 5:6

5:6 Indeed, for forty years the Israelites traveled through the desert until all the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt, the ones who had disobeyed the Lord, died off. ⁶  For the Lord had sworn a solemn oath to them that he would not let them see the land he had sworn on oath to give them, ⁷  a land rich in ⁸  milk and honey.

Amos 2:10

2:10 I brought you up from the land of Egypt;

I led you through the wilderness for forty years

so you could take the Amorites’ land as your own.

Acts 7:36

7:36 This man led them out, performing wonders and miraculous signs ⁹  in the land of Egypt, ¹⁰  at ¹¹  the Red Sea, and in the wilderness ¹²  for forty years.

Acts 13:8

13:8 But the magician Elymas ¹³  (for that is the way his name is translated) ¹⁴  opposed them, trying to turn the proconsul ¹⁵  away from the faith.

¹ tn The word is “shepherds.” It means that the people would be wilderness nomads, grazing their flock on available land.

² tn Heb “you shall bear your whoredoms.” The imagery of prostitution is used throughout the Bible to reflect spiritual unfaithfulness, leaving the covenant relationship and following after false gods. Here it is used generally for their rebellion in the wilderness, but not for following other gods.

³ tn The infinitive is from תָּמַם (tamam), which means “to be complete.” The word is often used to express completeness in a good sense – whole, blameless, or the like. Here and in v. 35 it seems to mean “until your deaths have been completed.” See also Gen 47:15; Deut 2:15.

⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

⁶ tn Heb “all the nation, the men of war who went out from Egypt, who did not listen to the voice of the Lord, came to an end.”

⁷ tn Some Hebrew mss, as well as the Syriac version, support this reading. Most ancient witnesses read “us.”

⁸ tn Heb “flowing with.”

⁹ tn Here the context indicates the miraculous nature of the signs mentioned.

¹⁰ tn Or simply “in Egypt.” The phrase “the land of” could be omitted as unnecessary or redundant.

¹¹ tn Grk “and at,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

¹² tn Or “desert.”

¹³ tn On the debate over what the name “Elymas” means, see BDAG 320 s.v. ᾿Ελύμας. The magician’s behavior is more directly opposed to the faith than Simon Magus’ was.

¹⁴ sn A parenthetical note by the author.

¹⁵ sn The proconsul was the Roman official who ruled over a province traditionally under the control of the Roman senate.