The number 8

New beginnings, resurrection, regeneration

New beginnings: resurrection and a fresh start

Eight marks a new beginning past the natural week: circumcision fell "on the eighth day" (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3), and Noah is remembered as one of "eight souls" carried through the flood into a renewed earth (1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5). The Feast of Tabernacles kept an extra eighth day beyond its normal seven (Leviticus 23:36; Nehemiah 8:18). E. W. Bullinger reads eight as seven plus one, resurrection and regeneration beginning a new order past a completed cycle, and calls it "the dominical number" because the Greek letters spelling "Jesus" sum to 888 by his gematria method. The eighth-day rulings for circumcision and the flood's eight survivors are real textual anchors; the gematria claim depends on Bullinger's own number-value system for Greek letters, a tradition-specific method rather than the text's own claim.

The mathematics

8 = 2³, the first cube after one, and a Fibonacci number.
8 and 9 are the only two consecutive perfect powers in the whole of arithmetic — a conjecture of Catalan's from 1844 that stood unproved for 158 years until Preda Mihăilescu closed it in 2002.
The octave: the eighth note of a scale is the first note again, at exactly double the frequency — a 2:1 ratio, the cleanest interval in music. The new beginning is literally the old note in a higher register.

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What they have said about this number

Resurrection, regeneration, and the beginning of a new order.

“It is 7 plus 1. Hence it is the number specially associated with Resurrection and Regeneration, and the beginning of a new era or order.”

E. W. Bullinger, Number in Scripture (1894)

“New beginnings — resurrection, new birth, new life, new creation.”

Troy Brewer, Numbers That Preach (2007)

In Hebrew and Greek

Hebrew

Shemoneh (שְׁמוֹנֶה) - eight, related to 'fatness' or 'abundance'

Greek

Okto (ὀκτώ) - eight

First occurrence

Genesis 5:4

And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

The pattern in Scripture

Eight people saved in ark (1 Pet 3:20)
Circumcision on 8th day
David the eighth son in 1 Sam 16:10-11 — the seventh in 1 Chron 2:13-15
Feast of Tabernacles: 8th day assembly

Key verses

Genesis 5:4

And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daug...

Genesis 5:7

And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:

Genesis 5:10

And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:

Genesis 5:13

And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughte...

Genesis 5:16

And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughte...

8:8 verses

Genesis 8:8

Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground...

Exodus 8:8

Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs...

Leviticus 8:8

And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.

Numbers 8:8

Then let them take a young bullock with his meat offering, even fine flour mingled with oil, and ano...

Deuteronomy 8:8

A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and ho...