In the previous post, it was mentioned that 8 is the number of new beginnings. This idea spawns from Scripture, but it’s also expressed in music.
In music, the eighth note is the octave. The octave is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the basic miracle of music (Source). The octave is at the same time the eighth note and a return to the first note. So for instance, the C Major scale is typically written C D E F G A B C. The initial C and final C are an octave apart. It’s the same note but beginning a new level.
In Scripture, there are many examples where God uses the number 8 to represent new beginnings. There were eight people abroad Noah’s ark. Via these eight souls, mankind entered a new beginning after the flood. When God established His covenant with Abraham, He commanded that every male must be circumcised on the eighth day of life (Genesis 17:12). On the eighth day, the child enters a covenant relationship with God and is given his Hebrew name.
In his book, In His Own Words, Grant Luton shares other notable examples of this number of new beginnings. He writes, “It is illustrated by the fact that God established a covenant with Abraham on eight occasions, thus establishing Abraham as the beginning of the Jewish nation. Also, David, the great king of Israel and a man after God’s own heart, was the eighth son of his father, Jesse (1 Samuel 17:12). When the temple was restored after the Babylonian exile, the outer area was consecrated for eight days, and another eight days were spent consecrating the inner area (2 Chronicles 29:17).” If you include the special “eighth day” at the end of the 7 day feast of Sukkot, then Sukkot is an 8 day celebration which anticipates the beginning of the Messianic Age. The eighth day is itself a day of new beginnings. Called Simchat Torah or Shemini Atzeret, it is the day on which the annual Torah reading finishes Deuteronomy and begins again in Genesis.
More examples of 8 as new beginnings: Aeneas was healed after eight years of paralysis (Acts 9:33-34). On the eighth day of preparation, Aaron was called by Moses to serve as high priest (Leviticus 9:1-8). The New Testament was penned by only eight men (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Peter, Jude, Paul). Luton writes, “The greatest beginning of all, however, was Jesus’ resurrection on the first day of the week. What does the first day of the week have to do with the number 8? Recall that 7 is a number which represents completeness by concluding a cycle of events. Thus 8 is the number of new beginnings since it represents the beginning of a new cycle. Jesus’ resurrection occurred on the first day of the week––a week of seven days. So, for all practical purposes, He arose on the first day of a new cycle––the eighth day.”
The eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the letter chet. It’s numeric value is 8. (Hebrew is alphanumeric, meaning each letter doubles as a number. This goes back to ancient times.) Pictured below is the letter chet, the number 8 in Hebrew:
Chet is the first letter of the word Hanukkah. Hanukkah goes back to 165BC, when the Jewish people liberated the Temple from the Greeks and rededicated it to God (a new beginning). However, “oil was needed for the menorah in the Temple, as it was supposed to burn throughout the night every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah. Thus, Hanukkah, an 8 day festival, was declared to commemorate this miracle. Note that the holiday commemorates the miracle of the oil, not the military victory; Jews do not glorify war” (Source).
If we go back even further in history, we come upon a baby boy named Isaac (pronounced Yitzchaq in Hebrew). יִצְחָק (Yitzchaq) means “he will laugh, he will rejoice.” It is derived from the word צָחַק (tzachaq) meaning “to laugh.” Of course, Isaac represents a new beginning not just for Abraham and Sarah but for the whole world, because in a way Isaac is the first Jew: the first person born a Jew, born into the covenant of promise, circumcised on the eighth day of life. Remembering that each Hebrew letter is also a number, let’s take a closer look at the word his parents were thinking of when they named him Isaac:
Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old when they produced a new beginning: Isaac, the baby boy who caused them to laugh.
