Moses was forty years old when he tried to lead Israel out of Egypt with the strength of his own arm. He failed in this effort, then ran like a little girl from the anger of Pharaoh. But who can blame him for trying? He was, after all, the only Israelite who had been raised in the palace under the protection of Pharaoh’s daughter. “I’m unique. I’m special. I was born for this,” he thought. Moses at forty was fully “Me”—brash, confident, full of himself. He was the kind of leader who would stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier, look into the lens of a TV camera, and say, “Mission accomplished.”
But Moses at eighty was a completely different man. In the book of Numbers, we read, “Now the man Moses was very meek, the most humble man on the face of the whole earth.”1 Having lived his second forty years as a shepherd on the backside of the desert, Moses had lost his hubris and developed a speech impediment.
Remember the number of years the unbelieving Israelites had to wander in the desert before they became a completely different people? Bingo—forty years.
That phrase “forty years” appears fifty-four times in the Bible, and in virtually every instance it refers to an epoch, a window of transformative change.
Do we, in fact, become a different people every forty years?
Here are a few of those Biblical references to forty years:
WE |
When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. [Moses tries to lead Israel and fails, then runs into the desert.] |
After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai [Moses is now eighty.]
ME |
Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel: I am now 120 years old, and I am no longer able to lead you. The LORD has said to me, “You shall not cross the Jordan.” [Moses at the entrance to the Promised Land after wandering forty years in the wilderness.] |
So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz [Caleb’s younger brother] died.
So may all your enemies perish, O LORD! But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had peace forty years. [The ending of the Song of Deborah]
Thus Midian was subdued before the Israelites and did not raise its head again. During Gideon’s lifetime, the land enjoyed peace forty years. [Gideon’s death]
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. [The birth of Samson]
When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel forty years.
David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years.
Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.
Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. [Joash repairs the Temple]
I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years. I will make the land of Egypt desolate among devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate forty years among ruined cities. And I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them through the countries. Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were scattered. I will bring them back from captivity and return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their ancestry. There they will be a lowly kingdom.
It will be the lowliest of kingdoms and will never again exalt itself above the other nations. I will make it so weak that it will never again rule over the nations.”
Note: It has been suggested to us that perhaps forty years was merely an ancient Hebrew expression that meant “a very long time” and didn’t actually refer to a literal number of years. But even if this is the case, it seems reasonable that the number forty was chosen because the ancient Hebrews had noticed how reliably things became totally different during that span of years. Consequently, the phrase came to mean, “a long window of time during which things become totally different.” But this is semantic hair splitting and we promised not to do that. Sorry.
William Strauss and Neil Howe didn’t mention the Bible in Generations but focused instead on the historical record of Western society from 1584 to the present, a deeply detailed study of more than four hundred years. Not bad. Now let’s overlay the twenty-year “generations” of Strauss and Howe onto the story of Moses. Our goal is to illustrate how these four strokes of the Pendulum follow a natural progression. The motivations and decisions of Moses demonstrate perfectly the principles of “Me” and “We.”
1. Idealist, marked by infatuation: The Zenith of the “Me,” this is symbolized by Moses at forty, full of himself, thinking, I’m special.
2. Reactive, marked by disillusionment: The Downswing of the “Me” to the fulcrum, this is symbolized by Moses at sixty after twenty years in the desert: “I’m searching for something better.”
3. Civic, marked by a power struggle: The Upswing of the “We” to the Zenith, this is symbolized by Moses at eighty—“just a regular guy trying to make it through the day”—who encounters a burning bush and becomes aware of a problem that needs to be corrected. He then found himself facing off with Pharaoh in a power struggle over the future of the children of Israel.
4. Adaptive, marked by reluctant acceptance: The Downswing of the “We” to the fulcrum, this is symbolized by Moses at one hundred, leading Israel in the wilderness: “I’m part of a team on a journey.”
When the four strokes of the Pendulum have completed their eighty-year journey, the society returns to the point where it began and the journey is begun anew:
As we mentioned earlier, the Pendulum can’t be used to predict events involving individuals; however, the Pendulum becomes readily apparent when we begin looking at the broader strokes of the brush—the bigger picture of a society over time.
The religious thoughts of a society often reflect the position of the Pendulum as we ascribe to God the “good” characteristics that we believe to be self-evident. Most of us believe in a God whose opinions reflect our own. Perhaps Spencer Marsh said it best in his book, God, Man and Archie Bunker: “In the beginning, Archie created God in his own image. In his own image created he him.”2 Richard Exley, a minister, compared the freewheeling “Me” interpretation of the Bible to the authoritative “We” interpretation agreed upon by a group and reflected,
Upon first reading I found his statement clever and attention grabbing. Upon further reflection I find it both profound and prophetic—an apt description of our postmodern culture with its freewheeling spirituality. What many believe about God is based on personal “spiritual” experience rather than on the revelation of Scripture.3
| THE CONTRARIAN LIFE OF MOSES | ||
Age 14 |
• Forming his youthful personality at the Zenith of a “ME.” |
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Age 40 |
• Kills the Egyptian taskmaster in the upswing of a “WE.” Full of himself. Society doesn’t appreciate his heroic efforts in a “WE.” |
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Age 80 |
• Returns from the desert into the upswing of a “ME.” Society wants a leader, but he doesn’t feel up to it. |
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Age 120 |
• Ego puffed up, Moses defiantly strikes the rock in the upswing of a “WE.” Like with the killing of the Egyptian, it doesn’t work out for him. |
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