“‘Tomorrow at midnight,’ said the first, who appeared to be in authority. ‘When the whip-poor-will calls three times.’
“‘It is well,’ returned the other. ‘Shall I tell Brother Drebber?’
“‘Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!’
“‘Seven to five!’ repeated the other; and the two figures flitted away in different directions.”
Why were the particular numbers in the sign and countersign chosen? In his annotation of the passage, Leslie Klinger refers to Ben Vizoskie’s suggestion that nine to seven and seven to five are a shorthand for segments in the secret, unpublished Book of Mormon. However, I offer a different suggestion, namely that the symbolism in the entire passage is rich in meaning, including that of the call of the Whip-poor-will.
There are two sets of numbers in the passage, named and unnamed. Those named are three (the number of times the Whip-poor-will calls), five, seven, and nine. The unnamed numbers are two and four.
Unpacking the the sign and countersign first, we find that nine is a multiple of three, which is the second prime number; seven is the fourth prime number; and five is the third. Nine, seven, and five added together equal twenty-one, the factors of which are three and seven. Moreover, the difference between nine and seven and between seven and five is two, which is the first prime number; and two twos equal four.
What is the significance of this? Two represents duality: lightness and darkness; male and female (we know this is not so simple, but 19th-century Mormons would have believed it to be); good and evil; and so on. Four refers, of course, to the Holy Four, the elders in the story.
Three and seven are important in various religions. In Mormonism there are, for example, the requirement for three witnesses and the three Nephite disciples (who don’t die until Christ returns), and there is the Trinity (though Mormons see that slightly differently than mainstream Christians do).
As for seven, it is the number of days of creation; and it’s the number of times the Israelites circled the walls of the city of Jericho and the number of the day on which they did so. Seven is also the sum of three and four, an interesting account of which can be found in the article “A Study in Seven: Hebrew Numerology in the Book of Mormon (https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/a-study-in-seven-hebrew-numerology-in-the-book-of-mormon/):
Though the origins of this view are shrouded in the past, it is believed that one prime reason the number seven gained this particular symbolism of “perfection and completeness” is that it combines the number three and the number four. The number three symbolized heaven (or the masculine) and the number four represented the earth (or the feminine). As is commonly explained, “Seven symbolizes wholeness in many cultures, being the union of the divinity (three) and the material earth (four).” Seven was regarded as “a holy number yielded by adding the basic number of the masculine, 3, and the basic number of the feminine, 4.” “Because the number seven (the septenary) combines the ternary and quaternary—heaven or divinity and earth or humanity—it unifies the macrocosm and microcosm and signifies cosmic order.”
Concerning the signal, “three” in the exchange refers explicitly to the number of times the Whip-poor-will is expected to call. Implicit is the same number: “Whip-poor-will” has three syllables, and the number of major sounds in the call is three, as well. Three is paired with another significant number, four, as each of the three syllables has four letters.
Finally, consider the W’s in Whip-poor-will. Inverted, they become M’s, the first letters of two sacred names: Mormon and Moroni.
And so we have it. The signal and the sign and countersign are a treasure trove of meaning.
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