Years Of Trial

Quid autem significaverunt illi quadraginta anni, quibus laboriose peractis, filii Israel ad repromissionis terram transierunt? Per hos quadraginta annos totum saeculi tempus significatur, in quo vivit Ecclesia sub laboribus et periculosis tentationibus, sperando quod non vidit per patientiam, quousque ad promissam aeternae felicitatis perveniat patriam. Ideo Dominicus quadraginta diebus jejunavit et quadraginta noctibus, et tentatus est in eremo. Corpus enim ejus, quod est Ecclesia, necesse est tentationes laboresque patiatur in hoc saeculo, quoad usque veniat illud tempus ubi post tentationes accipiat consolationes. Porro quod vestis Israel per tot annos in eremo nulla vestutate corrupta est, et morticina pellis calceamentorum tandiu sine labe duravit, potest figurare futuram incorruptibilitatem corporum, ubi ea quae corruptibilia sunt sine corruptione ulla permanebunt. Sanctus Isidorus Hispalensis,Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum Seu Quaestiones In Vetus Testamentum, In Deuteronomium, Caput II

What do those forty years signify in which amid laborious trials the sons of Israel crossed to the promised land? These forty years signify all the time of the age in which the Church lives under burdens and is beset by perilous trials, hoping through endurance for what it does not see until it come to the promised fatherland of eternal bliss. Therefore the Lord fasted forty days and nights and was tested in the desert. For it is necessary that his body, which is the Church, suffer trials and toils in this age, until it come to the time when after trials it receive consolation. And that the garments of Israel through all these years in the desert knew no wearing of age, and the dead skins of the shoes endured without fault, 1 can be a figure for the future incorruptibility of the body, when things which are corruptible without corruption persist. Saint Isidore of Seville, Expositions of Sacred Mysteries or Questions on the Old Testament, On Deutronomy, Chap 2 1 Deut 29.5