What does forty means in the Bible? And why thirty-nine?
When the Bible uses the word 'forty', it usually refer to a complete phase of life, a phase of life come to an end, a completion, an end. Example, forty years in wilderness, forty [times] smitten.. A wrong-doer will have a sentence of forty [times] - full payment if found guilty. The Judge (God, only God can judge as mentioned in earlier blog) will caused him to fall down and smitten in His presence, according to the wrong doing, by number (believe it is the number of times he is forgiven according to the wrong doing before judge him guilty; e.g. Solomon was given 3 chances to repent). Once judge guilty, it is full sentence (smite forty times) YLT Deu 25:1-3: 1 `When there is a strife between men, and they have come nigh unto the judgment, and they have judged, and declared righteous the righteous, and declared wrong the wrong-doer, 2 then it hath come to pass, if the wrong-doer is to be smitten, that the judge hath caused him to fall down, and [one] hath smitte...