Cock-Crowing

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

Cock-Crowing ( ἀλεκτοροφωνία).—The word occurs only in  Mark 13:35, where it is evidently used to designate the third of four parts into which the night was divided—‘at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning.’ In OT times there were only three watches in the night—the first, the middle, and the last; but by the time of Christ the Roman division into four watches had become common, though it had not altogether superseded the threefold division of the Jews. The night was reckoned, roughly speaking, from our 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and these twelve hours were divided into four watches of three hours each. Jerome says: ‘Nox in quatuor vigilias dividitur, quae singulae trium horarum spatio supputantur’ ( Ep. cxl. 8). The cock-crowing in  Mark 13:35 thus refers to the third watch of the night, between the hours of 12 and 3.

Although the noun ‘cock-crowing’ occurs only once in the NT, each of the four Evangelists records the fact that on the night of the betrayal Jesus forewarned Peter that before the cock crew he should thrice deny his Lord, and each of them also records a crowing of the cock immediately after the denial ( Matthew 26:34;  Matthew 26:74-75,  Luke 22:34;  Luke 22:60-61,  John 13:38;  John 18:27). In St. Mark we have the variations—all the more significant because of the writer’s commonly acknowledged dependence upon the Petrine tradition—that Jesus said to Peter, ‘Before the cock crow twice , thou shalt deny me thrice’; and in correspondence with this a record of two distinct cock-crowings ( Mark 14:30;  Mark 14:68;  Mark 14:72).

Attempts have been made to distinguish between these two cock-crowings in St. Mark as occurring at definite seasons of the night, the one about midnight and the other at the first approach of dawn, just before the commencement of the fourth or morning watch, and to define the second of the two as the gallicinium proper, and consequently the only one of which the other three Evangelists take notice. No doubt it is true that in the most distinctive sense of the word ‘the cock-crowing,’ as an indication of time, refers to the breaking of the dawn; thus in the Talmud it is prescribed that at cock-crow the benediction shall be used: ‘Praised be Thou, O God, the Lord of the world, that givest understanding to the cock to distinguish between day and night.’ But as a matter of fact cocks crow during the night, in the East as elsewhere, at irregular times from midnight onward; and the narrative of  Mark 14:66-72 does not suggest that there was an interval of anything like three hours between the first cock-crowing and the second. The probability is that Jesus meant no more than this, that before Peter himself had twice heard the cock crow he should thrice have been guilty of his great denial. And if we accept St. Mark’s narrative as embodying Peter’s own account of the incident, it will seem natural that the disciple to whom the warning was directly addressed, and on whom it would make the deepest impression, should distinguish between two separate cock-crowings where others thought only of the last.

There is no mention of the cock in the Mosaic law, and the supposed allusion to the breed in  1 Kings 4:23 (בַּרבּרִים, translated ‘fatted fowls’ both in Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885) is very doubtful. It may be that Solomon had imported these birds from the East; but, on the other hand, the fact that in the Talmudical literature the cock is always called by the name tarnĕgôl (חַּרְנִנּוֹל), suggests rather that it was introduced into Palestine from Babylonia.* [Note: A reference to the cock is found by some scholars in  Proverbs 30:31 (EV ‘greyhound’), where the וַרְוִיד (îr) of MT is rendered by the LXX ἀλέκτωρ; similarly Aquila and Theodotion, the Peshitta (‘ăbhakhâ) and the Vulgate .] But while the domestic fowl was quite familiar to the Jews of our Lord’s time, both the Mishna and the Midrash state that, so long as the Temple stood, the breeding or keeping of cocks in Jerusalem was forbidden, on the ground that by scratching in the earth they dug up unclean things, thus spreading the contagion of Levitical uncleanness, and even contaminating the sacrifices of the altar. On this ground exception has sometimes been taken, especially from Jewish sources, to the statements of the Evangelists as to the crowing of the cock in Jerusalem on the night before the crucifixion. But if such an ordinance existed, it is very unlikely that it could be strictly enforced in a city like Jerusalem, with a large and mixed population. In particular, we must remember that cock-fighting was one of the favourite sports of the Romans; and the Roman soldiers of the garrison would concern themselves very little about any Jewish prohibition of this kind.

Literature.—Grimm-Thayer, Lexicon, s.v. ἀλεκτοροφωνία; Smith’s Lat.-English Dict. s.v. ‘Vigilia’; Meyer’s Commentary on Matthew  ; Lange’s Life of Christ  ; Andrews, Life of our Lord upon the Earth , p. 521; Encyc. Bibl . and Jewish Encyclopedia , articles ‘Cock’ and ‘Day’; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, articles ‘Cock’ and ‘Time,’ cf. Extra Vol. p. 477 f.

J. C. Lambert.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Luke 12:38 Matthew 14:25 Mark 6:48 Matthew 26:34

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

The third watch of the night, in the time of Christ. See HOUR.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( Ἀλεκτοροφωνία ). "The cock usually crows several times about midnight, and again about break of day. The latter time, because he then crows loudest, and his ‘ shrill clarion' is most useful by summoning man to his labors, obtained the appellation of The cock-crowing emphatically, and by way ‘ of ‘ eminence, though sometimes the distinctions of the First and Second cock-crowing are met with in Jewish and heathen writers (Bochart, 3. 119). These times, and these names for them, were, no doubt, some of the most ancient divisions of the night adopted in the East, where ‘ the bird of dawning' is most probably indigenous. The latter ‘ cock-crow' was retained even when artificial divisions of time were invented. "In our Lord's time the Jews had evidently adopted the Greek and Roman division of the night into four periods or watches, each consisting of three hours, the first beginning at six in the evening ( Luke 12:38;  Matthew 14:25;  Mark 6:48)" (Kitto, s.v.). This watch (the third of these divisions, comprehending the space between the two cock-crowings) seems to have been about three in the morning, and was known to the Hebrews as קְרַיאַת הִגֶּבֶר ( Keriath' Hag-Ge'Ber ) , and was termed by the Romans Galliciniuem; and it has been supposed that Jerusalem being a military station of the Romans, the custom of that nation concerning the placing and relieving of the guard was in force there.

These watches, or guards, were declared by the sound of a trumpet; and whenever one guard relieved another, it was always done by the military signal. The whole four- watches were closed by the blowing of a shrill horn. Drakenborch says, the last trumpet, which blew at three in the morning, was sounded three times, to imitate the crowing of a cock. (See Watch). "It has been considered a contradiction that  Matthew 26:34 records our Lord to have said to Peter, ‘ Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice,' whereas  Mark 14:30 says, ‘ before the cock crow twice.' But Matthew, giving only the General Sense of the admonition (as also  Luke 22:34;  John 13:38), evidently alludes to that only which was Customarily called The cock-crowing; but Mark, who wrote under Peter's inspection, more accurately recording The Very Words, mentions the two cock-crowings (Wetstein on  Mark 14:30; Scheuchzer, Phys. Sacr. on  Mark 13:35; Whitby's Note on  Matthew 26:34). Another objection to this part of the Evangelical history has been founded upon an assertion of the Mishna ( Baba Kaml, 7, 7), ‘ They do not breed cocks at Jerusalem because of the holy things,' i.e., as it is interpreted, cocks turn up the dung- hills, and set free the reptiles by which the sacrifices might be polluted which were eaten as food; and that, consequently, Peter could not hear one crow. But this is sufficiently answered above. Even the traditions themselves on this subject are not uniform; witness the story (in Erubin, p. 26, 1) of a cock which killed a child, and was stoned by order of the council. Other instances are given by Reland, which show that the cock might crow, though not in the city, and yet be heard by Peter in the stillness of the night, especially as the palace of Caiaphas (according to the modern tradition) stood on an elevated situation, at the distance of scarcely 400 yards from the city walls." In the modern East the barndoor fowl is a common appendage to every household, and the cock-crowing is a universal signal of morning in Palestine (Thompson, Land and Book, 2, 552).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

kok´krō - ing ( ἀλεκτοροφωνία , alektorophōnı́a ): An indefinite hour of the night between midnight and morning ( Mark 13:35 ), referred to by all the evangelists in their account of Peter's denial ( Matthew 26:34 ,  Matthew 26:74;  Mark 14:30;  Luke 22:34;  John 13:38 ). It is derived from the habit of the cock to crow especially toward morning. See Cock .