Senses
1. forty — Indeclinable cardinal numeral 'forty', the most frequently used round number in biblical narrative, often signifying a period of testing, judgment, or generation. Used with שָׁנָה 'year' (wilderness wandering, Deut 1:3, Judg 5:8, 1 Sam 4:18), יוֹם 'day' (the Flood Gen 7:4, 7:12, 7:17; Moses on Sinai Exod 24:18; Elijah's journey 1 Kgs 19:8), and in counting people, animals, and measures across 129+ attestations. The article form הָאַרְבָּעִים functions as ordinal 'the fortieth' (Gen 18:29, Num 33:38, 1 Chr 26:31). All auto-split clusters (bare, with article, with prepositions ב/כ) represent the single numeral forty in different syntactic positions. Multilingual glosses are perfectly uniform: arb أربعين, deu vierzig, fra quarante, hin चालीस, kor 사십, spa cuarenta. 135×
AR["أربَعينَ","أَربَعينَ","أَرْبَعُونَ","أَرْبَعِينَ"]·ben["চল্লিশ","চল্লিশ-বছরের"]·DE["fünfundvierzig","vierzig","von-vierzig"]·EN["forty"]·FR["quarante"]·heb["ארבעים"]·HI["चलिस","चालीस"]·ID["empat puluh","empat-puluh"]·IT["quaranta"]·jav["kawan-dasa","sekawan-dasa"]·KO["마흔","사십","사십과","사십오의","사십의"]·PT["quarenta"]·RU["сорок","сорока"]·ES["cuarenta"]·SW["arobaini","miaka-arobaini","siku-arobaini"]·TR["kırk"]·urd["چالیس"]
BDB / Lexicon Reference
אַרְבָּעִים136 n.pl. indecl. a forty;— 1. sine num. al.: a. usually appos. bef. n., especially שָׁנָה, יוֹם (sing.): אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה Ju 3:11; 1 S 4:18; Am 2:10; 5:25 + 29 times; א׳ יוֹם Gn 7:17; 1 K 19:8; Jon 3:4 + 6 times, א׳ יוֹם וְא׳ לַיְלָה Gn 7:4, 12; Ex 24:18 + 7 times; also א׳ בַּת †1 K 7:38, א׳ גָּמָל †2 K 8:9, א׳ אַמָּה †Ez 41:2 and (אַמָּה om.) 46:22, but א׳ בָּאַמָּה †1 K 6:17 (v.…