The Almighty created the universe, and on the seventh day he rested. So it is written.
Yesterday, on the seventh day of the seventh month in a year ending in 07, some might have seen significance in the confluence of numbers.
Many married. Many played the lottery.
Two forms of chance, one more blessed.
At least two women decided to marry their men, on that date, because of that date.
A mother. And a daughter. In the same Philadelphia ceremony.
"For me as a believer, it has a special meaning," said Michele DelValles, 39, sitting alongside her daughter, Shameka Henderson, 21.
It was only moments after DelValles had married Wendolus Hart, 34, and Henderson had married Walter Bailey, 21, at the Church of Faith at 38th and Brown Streets in the city's Mantua section.
It was DelValles' idea to have the four commit themselves on the date, but it was more than a set of numbers.
"It was significant to my fiance," Hart said of DelValles, because as with the completion of Creation, the date "signifies the completion of our relationship in marriage."
For those who believe in the New Jersey Lottery, the numbers were uplifting, if far less spiritual.
They lifted the hopes of Michele Liontas, 48, of Mount Ephraim.
"I've been playing 777 as one of my usual numbers," Liontas said after buying five instant lottery tickets at the Cherry Hill News Shop on Chapel Avenue.
"But I never made the connection today, to the date."
Nearby, in Merchantville, the annual car show had taken over the town.
"People have been betting sevens all day long," and far more than usual, said Sam Al-Jobeh, owner of the News Nook on Central Avenue.
They started Friday, perhaps concerned that "lottery officials were going to stop taking any number with a seven," he said.
In Pennsylvania on Friday, lottery officials did stop selling tickets numbered 7777 or 7707 for two of yesterday's drawings.
So many people were betting those numbers that a computer shut off access because the payoff had reached its limit. The New Jersey Lottery has no payout limit.
At the Mantua church, Bishop Claude Barnes said before the ceremony that the marriage was especially significant because his nondenominational congregation saw only one or two marriages a year.
"This is so important" for the 150-member congregation, which he has led since 1974, Barnes said, "because in Mantua there are a lot of churches in the community, but the question is: Is the community in the churches?"
