He endured their conduct for about forty years in the wilderness.
Parallel translations
- WEB For a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness.
- KJV And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness.
- ESV And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness.
- NKJV Now for a time of about forty years He put up with their ways in the wilderness.
- NASB For a period of about forty years He put up with them in the wilderness.
- NLT He put up with them through forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
For about forty years God bore with Israel in the wilderness. His patience persisted through their rebellion.
Overview
Paul highlights God's long-suffering endurance of a stubborn people during the wilderness wandering. The forty years recall both their testing and God's faithful provision despite their sin. This emphasis on divine patience prepares the way for the message of grace and forgiveness Paul will proclaim in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Acts 7:36He led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness.
- Num 14:33–34Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.
- Ps 106:13–29Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.
- Num 14:22not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—
- Ezek 20:10–17So I brought them out of the land of Egypt and led them into the wilderness.
- Heb 3:16–19For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?
- Deut 1:31and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.”
- Deut 9:7Remember this, and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against the LORD.
- Deut 9:21–24And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.
- Neh 9:16–21But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments.
- Acts 7:39–43But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
- Amos 5:25–26Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
- Ps 78:17–42But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.
- Ps 95:8–11do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness,
- Heb 3:7–10Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice,
- Exod 16:2And there in the desert they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
- Exod 16:35The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land where they could settle; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.
- 1 Cor 10:1–10I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Acts is the risen Christ continuing his work by the Spirit through the church, as the apostles preach that there is salvation in no other name under heaven.
How Acts 13:18 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.