“And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness.”
My Notes
What Does Acts 13:18 Mean?
"About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness." The marginal note offers an alternate reading: "bore them, or fed them as a nurse beareth or feedeth her child." The two readings create a powerful ambiguity: did God endure Israel's bad behavior (suffered their manners) or nurture them like a nurse with a child (bore/fed them)? Both are true simultaneously.
Paul is recounting Israel's wilderness history during his synagogue sermon in Antioch of Pisidia. The forty-year wilderness period is summarized in a single phrase that captures the entire relationship: God bearing with a difficult people. Whether the emphasis is patience with sin or nurturing care, the duration is the same: forty years.
The nurse/child imagery (if that reading is preferred) presents God as a caregiver to an infant nation — feeding, carrying, tending. Israel in the wilderness was a toddler, and God was the parent who carried the toddler through the desert. The frustration and the tenderness coexist.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Which do you need to hear — that God endures your behavior or that God carries you?
- 2.How does the nurse/child imagery change your view of the wilderness period?
- 3.What does forty years of sustained patience teach about God's commitment?
- 4.How do frustration and tenderness coexist in your relationship with God?
Devotional
For forty years, God either endured their bad behavior or carried them like a nurse carries a baby. The ambiguity is the point: both are true. God was simultaneously patient with their sin and tender with their weakness. The same forty years. The same God. Frustration and nurture in one relationship.
The nurse imagery transforms the wilderness from a punishment narrative into a parenting one. Israel wasn't just wandering as judgment. Israel was being carried as infancy. The nation was a toddler — stumbling, complaining, wandering in circles — and God was the parent who didn't put the child down even when the child was insufferable.
Forty years of carrying. Not a weekend. Not a season. Forty years. The patience of God isn't measured in moments of tolerance but in decades of sustained care for a people who tested every boundary and exhausted every reasonable expectation.
This is how God relates to you too: simultaneously enduring your worst behavior and carrying you through it. Not one or the other. Both. The frustrated parent who is also the tender nurse. The God who suffers your manners while feeding you like a child.
Which do you need to hear today — that God endures your behavior or that God carries you? Both are true. Both are happening. For as long as your wilderness lasts.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And about the time of forty years,.... From their coming out of Egypt, to their entrance into the land of Canaan:…
And about the time of forty years - They were this time going from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Exo 16:35; Num 33:38.…
About the time of forty years - The space of time between their coming out of Egypt, and going into the promised…
Perga in Pamphylia was a noted place, especially for a temple there erected to the goddess Diana, yet nothing at all is…
suffered he their manners in the wilderness This expression has the highest MSS. support. Yet the change of one letter…
Cross References
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