Eight for the 8 Who Stood at the Gate
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 06:00AM "Children, Go Where I Send Thee" is one of my favorite songs from childhood, and like many songs favored by children, it's only erratically coherent. But since the parts that do make sense seem related to the Bible, it's possible that the other parts originally had biblically-based meaning as well, before the first lyrics got lost through the oral tradition of folk songs and old spirituals that includes many variations in the lyrics.
Counting down from twelve to one, we find ourselves now at the line, "I'm gonna send you eight by eight--eight for the eight who stood at the gate."
I don't know for certain who "stood at the gate", but the most famous group of eight in the Bible is Noah and his family, who I imagine stood at the gate to the ark and looked over the world they knew before they closed themselves in with a many-hooved, pawed, and tailed menagerie. The fact that a popular alternate for the above line says, "eight for the eight who sealed their fate," sort of bolsters my confidence in this theory about Noah and Mrs. Noah; along with sons Shem, Ham, Japheth and the three daughters-in-law being the above-referenced eight.
Eight is the biblical number of new beginnings, which is fitting for the family of Noah. They were the lone survivors of the last global disaster and as such became the ancestors of us all.
Speaking of new beginnings, there is an interesting connection between between the date the ark came to rest and its inhabitants disembarked, and the date that Jesus rose from the dead. I'll cover that when we get to the number seven.
Noah, new beginnings
Reader Comments (1)
Roxana! http://www.furtherfield.org/njenkins/dirge/archives/000026.html
can you At the lowest level, all computers are programmed with strings of ones and zeroes