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40 Days

October 19, 2024

(4 minute read)

On October 16, one week after this trip was due to begin, I made an interesting observation with regards to the length of this trip. As of October 16, the trip was due to last 38 days from October 9 to November 16. As it happens, this trip was due to begin exactly 40 days and nights prior to the 17th of Cheshvan in the Hebrew calendar, which, according to commonly accepted Jewish tradition, is the day that Noah's Flood began with 40 days and 40 nights of rain! The 17th of Cheshvan corresponds with November 18 in the Gregorian calendar in 2024.

This is an interesting observation in light of the other references to the number 40 that God worked into this trip. (It was inspired on the first day of Lent - the 40-day fasting period prior to Easter Sunday, not counting the Sundays; and both trips to Jerusalem and Israel that were inspired on Ash Wednesday were inspired exactly 40 visits apart - the 11th and 51st).

This visit to Israel would cover the 51st anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, ending on October 25, 1973.

Of the five separate visits to Jerusalem that God inspired for this trip, the last one from November 13-16 would be the 40th to occur in chronological order out of all the trips that God had inspired! This was discovered exactly seven months to the day since it was inspired on March 16. Thus, it would appear that I was meant to discover this on this very day! (October 16, 2024).

March 16 after nightfall was the 7th of Adar II in the Hebrew calendar, or the traditional birth and death date of Moses, and it fell exactly 7 Hebrew months prior to the start of this trip on the 7th day of the 7th month of Tishrei, which fell on October 9 that year. So, once again, it appears that God is very much in control of the timing and discovery of events on this trip! It was on October 9 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his first phone call with US President Joe Biden in exactly 7 weeks, to discuss retaliation options for Iran's October 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel. This too, fell on the 7th day of the 7th month of Tishrei!

What is interesting about all of this is that the number 40 is very much connected with Moses, who spent 40 days and 40 nights up Mt. Sinai on probably three separate occasions (Exodus 24:18; Deuteronomy 9:18; & Exodus 34:28), as well as his life being divided into three distinct periods of 40 years each: (40 years before killing the Egyptian - Acts 7:23; 40 years in the wilderness of Midian before confronting Pharaoh at age 80 - Exodus 7:7 & Acts 7:30; and 40 years wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites before dying at age 120 - Deuteronomy 34:7).

Jesus Himself spent 40 days and nights fasting in the wilderness following His baptism, which is what the 40 days of Lent commemorates. Thus, it would appear that God's use of the number 40 throughout this trip is no accident, but a very carefully designed plan right from the beginning! It just remains to be seen how it plays out, and what it all means.

The number 40 is often considered a period of trial or probation by biblical scholars throughout the Bible.

Also on October 16, Israel killed Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas, just hours before the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles that evening. He was the main architect of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, on what was the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, otherwise known as the Eighth Day of Assembly. So there appears to be some interesting timing there.

In a separate but unrelated story, October 16 marked exactly 777 days since God inspired me to switch back to my original Lotto numbers using the number 33. This occurred on August 31, 2022 at 4:12 p.m. - what turns out to be 972 minutes into the new day, which happens to be the international dialling code for Israel! (+972).

The following day on October 17, I made another interesting discovery.

October 17 was the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, falling on the 15th of Tishrei. As of that date, I had spent precisely 33 weeks (231 days) sleeping in my car since July 12, 2023 (not consecutively). As it happened, my car broke down on that very day, having not been serviced since May 16, 2023, 17 months and 1 day earlier. It was due to be serviced five months, or about 2,000 km (1,250 mi) earlier! However, I didn't have the money to do so, so it remained on the "to do" list.

And then that got me thinking about how I got into this situation, and I thought back to when the company who approached me to buy my website back in 2009, failed to materialise. As it happened, they approached me on November 18, 2009 - exactly 777 weeks (5,439 days) prior to the start of this trip on October 9 - the 7th day of the 7th month of Tishrei! So that was quite a remarkable coincidence! If my car hadn't have broken down on this day, I probably wouldn't have discovered it.

And of course, that meant that November 18, 2024 (17 Cheshvan, 5785 - the traditional start date of Noah's Flood), would mark exactly 15 years to the day since they approached me to buy it. The deal fell through on Christmas Eve 2009 (December 24), having received their initial offer two days earlier on December 22.

The 17th of Cheshvan begins on the evening of Sunday, November 17, what is the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Catholic liturgical calendar, falling exactly 33 weeks to the day since Easter Sunday on March 31, 2024 - the day Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

Itinerary: October-November 2024

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