According to the Talmud (Shabbat 21b), the ritually pure oil available at the rededication of the Temple was sufficient for only one day's light but miraculously lasted for eight days; hence the eight-day celebration.
Go out into the desert and kill your elder brother Arthur Danny Hustonn), or your younger brother, the 14-year-old Mikey, will be hanged on Christmas Day, a mere nine days hence.
The Jews rededicated the temple, and according to tradition, a small vial of oil, enough to last one day, burned instead for eight days -- hence the eight days of the festival.
And so another audition was set up for four days hence.
At that point, he told me that the course was being offered two days hence in West Virginia.
With the next debate devoted to domestic issues, just four days hence, both sides said Iraq would finally yield center stage.
In normal circumstances the Westminster village would already be fizzing with speculation about George Osborne's eighth budget, which he will deliver nine days hence.
Then the designer, who wasn't giving away anything that night about his haute-couture collection two days hence, put a hand over his mouth.
Not all bees survived for four days, hence we recorded the number of dead bees at the start and end of each day.
Translate that into political terms, and it is easy to understand how high the stakes are for the Clinton Administration, and Mr. Gore in particular, at that meeting in Vienna eight days hence.
