40 days and 40 nights. Actually, that sounds pretty good if you're Israel in the wilderness. They would have taken that in a heartbeat! What they got instead was 40 years. That's not how God planned it, of course. Of the twelve spies they sent into Canaan, to spy it out, to see how they might go in, ten of the twelve told them not to go. So the people, filled with fear and trebling, rebelled. They forgot the mighty deeds God had done to bring them out of Egypt. So, God decided, 40 years.