The choir will call everyone to worship on Sunday (1st Sunday in Lent) with Heinlein’s arrangement Forty Days and Forty Nights. I’ve always been curious about the number 40, as used in the Bible. Why not 30 days? Was language so limited that “forty” as used in the Bible would be equivalent to “lightyears” in today’s lingo? Consider the other references to forty in the Bible:
- In the story of Noah and the Great Flood, it rains for “forty days and forty nights”
- Moses spent “forty days and forty nights” on Mount Sinai when receiving the Ten Commandments
- Jesus spent “forty days” in the desert before beginning his public ministry
While I have just recently become a more interested student of the Bible (as opposed to the “must study the Bible to graduate attitude”), it becomes evident that the number “forty” symbolizes a “long period of time”. Within the context of the “instant world” that we now live in, forty days seems like a really long time.
Forty days and forty nights
Thou wast fasting in the wild;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled.
Nice job Cecille. I love what you've done with the blog! Just a note that the title in brackets [] is not always the composer but sometimes the arranger and if the title is capitalized it is the name of the tune. The hymn tunes names are sometime the name of the town or region where the tune originated and sometimes it is the name of the original melody. For example the tune for Danny Boy if the LONDONDERRY AIRE. That melody can be sung to many different texts. Hymn tune names are very interesting! Francesco
ReplyDeleteAaaah. Thanks for clarifying.
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