Hour

Holman Bible Dictionary

Biblical Hebrew has no word for hour, only an expression for an appointed meeting time ( 1 Samuel 9:24 RSV). The New Testament term hora can refer to a general time of day, a “late hour” (  Matthew 14:15 NRSV), to a brief moment of time (  Revelation 18:17; compare  John 5:35 ), or to the time of an expected momentous event ( Matthew 8:13;  Mark 13:11 ). It also designates a period of time, somewhat flexible in duration, one twelfth of the daylight hours and one twelfth of the night, a day being divided into the two periods (or watches) of light and darkness beginning at sunrise, making the seventh hour ( John 4:52 ) about one p.m.

Jesus' hour is a central theme in John's Gospel, creating an emotional uncertainty and expectancy and a theological understanding of the central importance of Jesus' death and resurrection. In John's Gospel, “hour” usually refers to the period from the triumphant entry ( John 12:23 ) until the climactic death and resurrection.

The reader of the Gospel first encounters the term in Jesus' reply to His mother's implicit appeal for help at the wedding in Cana: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come” ( John 2:4 ). Although His “hour” had not arrived, Jesus proceeded to perform His first sign, changing water to choice wine, thus manifesting His “glory” ( John 2:11 ). The narrator informed the reader that this is only the beginning of signs ( John 2:11 ). Since weddings and wine are associated in both Jewish and Christian thought with the messianic kingdom, the reader's expectations concerning Jesus' “hour” are quite traditional at this stage in the narrative ( Isaiah 62:4-5;  Amos 9:13-14;  Hosea 14:7;  Jeremiah 31:12;  Matthew 8:11;  Matthew 22:1-14;  Luke 22:16-18;  Revelation 19:9; see also 1Enoch 10:19; 2Baruch 29:5). Jesus, surrounded by His family and His believing disciples, had manifested His glory at a wedding feast by supplying an abundance of choice wine. Still, His “hour” was yet to come, as were additional “signs.”

In His conversation with the woman at Sychar ( John 4:1-42 ) Jesus referred again to a coming “hour” ( John 4:21 ,John 4:21, 4:23 ), a time when Jerusalem and Gerizim, the holy sites of Jews and Samaritans, respectively, would lose their significance, for worship—would be “in Spirit and truth.” The reader's expectations concerning Jesus' “hour” still take the form of a future manifestation of Jesus' messianic glory.

After healing the lame man on the Sabbath in Jerusalem, Jesus entered into a controversy with Jewish leaders over His authority ( John 5:1-47 ). They wished to kill him for violating the Sabbath and for blasphemy ( John 5:18 ). Jesus spoke of a coming “hour” when His own voice would call forth the dead from the tombs ( John 5:28-29 ). This hour had, in fact, already arrived in some sense ( John 5:25; compare  John 4:23;  John 11:43-44 ). Thus far in the narrative, the reader has heard of Jesus' coming “hour” in which His glory will be manifested, Jerusalem and Gerizim will lose their significance, and life will be provided for the dead. Like the water in the stone pots at Cana, the meaning of all this would eventually be transformed into something far richer.

In the Capernaum synagogue following his feeding of the multitudes, Jesus again spoke of raising the dead “at the last day” ( John 6:39-40 ,John 6:39-40, 6:44 ). Although the discourse contains no reference to Jesus' hour, the reader is reminded of the statements in  John 5:28-29 . A puzzling element is introduced in chapter six, however. Jesus clearly associated His ability to give life with His own death ( John 6:51-58 ). This is the first time the reader has been asked to understand Jesus' “hour” in terms of death.

In chapter seven this association becomes more explicit. Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sought Jesus' life, so He became unwilling to “walk in Judea” ( John 7:1 ). Jesus' brothers challenged Him to make a public appearance in Jerusalem, but He refused because His “time [kairos, not hora] is not yet at hand” ( John 7:6 ). He did proceed to the feast of tabernacles but on His own schedule ( John 7:8-10 ). Jerusalem leaders continued to seek His life, but were unable to lay hands on Him because “his hour was not yet come” ( John 7:30 ,John 7:30, 7:44;  John 8:20 ,John 8:20, 8:59;  John 10:31 ,John 10:31, 10:39 ). The reader has by now developed strong suspicions that Jesus' “hour” somehow forebodes His death.

Suspicions are confirmed when, following more intense plots against His life ( John 11:47-57 ) and a proleptic anointing for burial ( John 12:1-8 ), Jesus made a public entry into Jerusalem ( John 12:12-19 ). After some “Greeks” sought an audience with Him, Jesus announced for the first time, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified” ( John 12:23 ). Jesus did not seek the hour; rather he sought deliverance from it ( John 12:27 ). Still He knew the hour was necessary to glorify His Father ( John 12:28 ). He then interpreted this “hour” as the time of his being “lifted up” in death ( John 12:32-34; compare  John 3:14-15 ). In the references to Jesus' hour that follow, the association with His death is explicit ( John 13:1-3;  John 17:1 ). In fact, the word occurs in the account of the crucifixion itself, when the narrator says of Jesus' mother, “from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home” ( John 19:27 ).

The Johannine theme of Jesus' “hour” makes a significant theological contribution to the Gospel. As the reader encounters this motif repeatedly, a perspective on Jesus' death develops that is quite different from that gained in the other Gospels. Without trivializing the reality of Jesus' suffering and death, the Gospel of John presents that event as the “hour” of Jesus' “glory,” the time of His “exaltation/lifting up.” Jesus' death is the means by which eternal life is provided for the world ( John 3:14-15;  John 6:51-53 ). From that hour on human distinctions no longer apply ( John 4:21-24;  John 11:51-53;  John 12:20-23 ). The glory of Jesus' death is found both in what it enabled him to offer the world ( John 6:51-53;  John 7:37-39 ) and in its being the means by which He returned to the Father ( John 13:1 ). The accounts of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus in  John 20:1-21:23 serve to underscore the glory of His “hour.” See Glory; John; Time.

R. Robert Creech

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

HOUR. — 1 . In several of their accounts of Christ’s healings, the Evangelists indicate the instantaneousness of the cures by some such expression as ‘He was healed in the selfsame hour’ ( Matthew 8:13, cf.  Matthew 9:22;  Matthew 15:28;  Matthew 17:18,  John 4:53). More definitely the word is used as a division of the day ( Matthew 20:3;  Matthew 20:5-6;  Matthew 20:12;  Matthew 27:45-46, cf  Mark 15:33-34,  Luke 23:44,  John 1:39;  John 4:6;  John 4:52;  John 19:14). The usual system of reckoning time was from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and again from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. ‘In the 1st cent. of our era the day was divided, in popular language, into twelve equal parts or hours, which varied in length according to the season.… The expression, “the first hour,” indicated the time when the shadow on the dial reached the mark which showed that 1½ of the day had elapsed’ (Ramsay, Expositor , March 1893, p. 216 f.). The question has been raised, because of the apparent divergence between  John 19:14 and  Mark 15:25, whether St. John adopted another method of reckoning in the Fourth Gospel, viz. from midnight to midday, and from midday to midnight. Prof. Ramsay maintains that, though the Roman civil day was reckoned in this way, it was not divided into hours; and that the note of time when the martyrdom of Polycarp took place, ὤρᾳ ὀγδόῃ, does not prove its use in Asia Minor ( l.c. ). But the internal evidence of the Fourth Gospel points strongly to this mode of reckoning on the part of St. John. The tenth hour ( John 1:39) is more probably 10 a.m. than 4 p.m., if the two disciples lodged with Jesus ‘that day.’ It harmonizes with the custom of Eastern women of drawing water in the evening, and accounts for the weariness of Jesus, if we take ‘the sixth hour’ of  John 4:6 not as noon, but as 6 p.m. And although we cannot look for precision in point of time in Oriental writers, the divergence between the Synoptists and St. John as to the hour of Christ’s condemnation and crucifixion is too wide to be intelligible on any other hypothesis than that they used different systems of reckoning. But if the ‘sixth hour’ of  John 19:14 means 6 a.m., there is no divergence (see Westcott, St. John , p. 282; Smith, The Days of His Flesh , pp. 528–529; and for the opposite view, Dods, Expos. Gr. Test . i. 698, 855, 856). See, further, artt. Day, Time.

2 . But Jesus, living ‘in feelings, not in figures on a dial,’ and ‘counting time by heart-throbs,’ gave the word an intense significance. To Him days and hours were moral magnitudes. The appointed span was not small, but spacious (‘Are there not twelve hours in the day?’  John 11:9), to be employed in strenuous and loving obedience to the Divine will (cf.  John 9:4). Until the sunset, He knew He had no reason to fear the hostility of men. Life would be as long as duty, and in the path of God’s service there are no tragic foreshortenings ( John 11:8-9). But the twelfth hour of the day was that to which He so pathetically refers as ‘Mine hour.’ At the marriage feast in Cana, when appealed to by His mother with a suggestion for His help, He replied, ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come’ ( John 2:4). This may simply mean that the time for giving such relief was not opportune, or that the opportunity for miracle-working, or the moment for self-manifestation, had not arrived. But the whole utterance produces the impression that the appeal had aroused strong feelings, and created a critical situation for Him.

‘He was standing on the threshold of His ministry, conscious of His miraulous power, and He was questioning whether that were the hour to put it forth.… The supplying of wine to a company of peasants seemed so trivial, so unworthy of the Messiah, so insufficient for the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven’ (Smith, The Days of His Flesh , p. 55).

But is there not even here a reference to what He calls peculiarly His hour—‘the hour when the Son of Man should be glorified’ ( John 12:23; cf.  John 17:1); the hour when He should be betrayed into the hands of sinners ( Matthew 26:45); the hour when the Father’s will gave Him over to the power of darkness ( Luke 22:53)? If Jesus went down to the Jordan in order to participate in the Baptism of Repentance, conscious that His vocation as Messiah was to be that of the Suffering Servant, and to take upon Himself the sins of His brethren, then the thought of His hour as the hour of His sacrifice could never be absent from His mind. And the simple suggestion of His mother, involving, as it did, for Him the first exercise of a power which came to Him as Messiah, raised suddenly and vividly before Him the issue of suffering, and called forth the intense feeling in the words, ‘Mine hour is not yet come.’

A similar tumult of emotion was produced towards the end of His ministry, by the request of the Greeks to see Him ( John 12:20). The reply of Jesus, ‘The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.… Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone,’ is relevant to a prospect of possible exemption from the cross which the request raised in Him, rather than to the request itself. Once more an apparently innocent intrusion upon His thoughts had brought before Him the vision of His hour. He saw that the glory would be won at a great cost, and the prospect of it brought distress of soul, and wrung from Him the cry, ‘Father, what shall I say? Save me from this hour.’ But immediately He saw through the pain the holy purpose of God realizing itself, and recovered His poise of soul and unflinching devotion. ‘But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.’

It was by this simple word, therefore, that He expressed the conviction that His death was the climax of His life, and that the time of its accomplishment was with God. He would not forestall it by any premature manifestation of Himself to the world ( John 7:6); and until His hour came, His enemies were powerless against Him ( John 7:30,  John 8:20). But when it came, He was not reluctant to recognize it. Though it was a dark hour, the hour of men with sinister purpose and in league with Satan ( Luke 22:53), He knew it as the hour when He should depart out of this world unto the Father ( John 13:1), the hour when God should glorify His Son ( John 17:1).

With the approach of that hour which marked the climax and close of His earthly ministry, a wider horizon opens. A new day of God dawns, and in it also there is a critical hour—‘the hour when the Son of Man cometh’ ( Matthew 25:13). Even to Him the precise point of time was not disclosed ( Matthew 24:36). Of one thing He was sure, and gave repeated warning,—it would come upon men with startling suddenness: ‘and in an hour when ye think not’ ( Matthew 24:42;  Matthew 24:44;  Matthew 24:50;  Matthew 25:13, cf.  Luke 12:39;  Luke 12:49;  Luke 12:46); and He enforces therewith His command to ‘watch,’ ‘be ready,’ so that, though it come suddenly, it may be a glad surprise.

Joseph Muir.

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

Hour, Hours

We do not find any particular method made use of in the Old Testament Scripture, for dividing the hours of the day in one regular plan. The Hebrews made four parts in each day—morning, noon, the first evening, and the last evening. And the night was again formed into three parts—the night watch, the midnight watch, and what was called the morning watch, to the break of day. Hence David beautifully speaks of the waiting of his soul on the Lord, "more than they that watch for the morning;" yea, said he, repeating it with earnestness, "yea, I say, more than they that watcheth for the morning." ( Psalms 130:6) The dial of Ahas is the first account we have in Scripture of the method the Hebrews had to mark down the progress of time; and this it should seem, was by marks or lines of degrees, and not of hours. In the New Testament we find our fathers then arrived at some method of calculating hours; and certainly then they did, as we do now, divide the day into twelve hours. Hence Jesus said, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" ( John 11:9. see also  Matthew 20:3-5). But the time of reckoning always began at six in the morning; and the seventh was the first hour. The reader of the New Testament should always keep this in remembrance. Hence when we read, ( Acts 3:1) that Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour, that was three in what we call the afternoon; and, consequently, the twelfth hour was six in the evening.

While I am upon this subject of the Jewish hours, I cannot forbear calling the reader's attention to one circumstance, which I think, now in the present day of the church, still equally interesting as it was of old always regarded, I mean the time of the evening sacrifice. If the reader will turn to the first account of any appointed sacrifice, even the lamb of the Passover, ( Exodus 12:5) he will find, that the whole assembly of the people were to kill this lamb of the first year without blemish in the evening, or, as the margin of the Bible hath it, between the two evenings, that was what we should call three o'clock in the afternoon; and to this precise time all the sacrifices of the evening corresponded. Hence, we are told, ( 1 Kings 18:29) they prophesied till the evening sacrifice. Ezra saith, "I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice, and at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness." ( Ezra 9:4-5) Hence David also prays, "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice," ( Psalms 141:2) And Daniel tells the church, that the man Gabriel touched him about "the time of the evening oblation." ( Daniel 9:21)

Now what I beg the reader particularly to notice in all these instances, is the uniformity as to the time of the hour; and then let him turn his attention, and look at the cross of Christ, and behold the Lord Jesus at that very hour fulfilling the whole in the sacrifice of himself. The Evangelists are all particular to remark, that there was darkness over all the earth, from the sixth hour (twelve at noon) until the ninth hour, (three in the afternoon.) And then it was Jesus, cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. Now let the reader pause, and consider the subject attentively. Who was it but God the Holy Ghost, that caused the evening sacrifice, from the first moment of appointed sacrifices in the church to the glorious finishing of all sacrifices in the death of the Lord Jesus, thus minutely to correspond? And what a sacred hour that was all along considered in the divine mind, when not the sacrifice only, but the very hour of offering it was so scruptulously regarded! Think then reader, how infinitely momentous must be the thing itself, when the mere shadow of the substance was so solemnly attended to; when through a period of more than fifteen hundred years the evening lamb was regularly sacrificed in the very hour which, in after ages, Christ, the Lamb of God, should offer himself in a sacrifice to God, to take away the sins of the world! Lord, I would say, for myself and reader, cause this hour of the afternoon, which was so sacred in the Jewish church, to be sacred to my soul also; and wherever I am, or however engaged, at the sounding bell at three in the afternoon, call my forgetful wandering thoughts to the hill of Calvary. Let me as often as the circumstances of my poor, empty, and unsatisfying life will allow, by faith, do as Peter and John did, indeed, go up to the Lord's house at the hour of prayer, the three o'clock hour; and there may my soul meet the Lord of Peter and John, and like the cripple healed in Christ's name at the gate of the temple, may my feet and ankle bones receive strength in the name of Jesus; and while the Lord himself takes me by the hand, may I, as he did, leap up and stand, and with Jesus enter into his temple walking, and leaping, and praising God. ( Acts 3:1-26)

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

1: Ὥρα (Strong'S #5610 — Noun Feminine — hora — ho'-rah )

whence Lat., hora, Eng., "hour," primarily denoted any time or period, expecially a season. In the NT it is used to denote (a) "a part of the day," especially a twelfth part of day or night, an "hour," e.g.,  Matthew 8:13;  Acts 10:3,9;  23:23;  Revelation 9:15; in  1—Corinthians 15:30 , "every hour" stands for "all the time;" in some passages it expresses duration, e.g.,  Matthew 20:12;  26:40;  Luke 22:59; inexactly, in such phrases as "for a season,"  John 5:35;  2—Corinthians 7:8; "for an hour,"  Galatians 2:5; "for a short season,"  1—Thessalonians 2:17 , RV (AV, "for a short time," lit., "for the time of an hour"); (b) "a period more or less extended," e.g.,  1—John 2:18 , "it is the last hour," RV; (c) "a definite point of time," e.g.,  Matthew 26:45 , "the hour is at hand;"  Luke 1:10;  10:21;  14:17 , lit., "at the hour of supper;"  Acts 16:18;  22:13;  Revelation 3:3;  11:13;  14:7; a point of time when an appointed action is to begin,  Revelation 14:15; in  Romans 13:11 , "it is high time," lit., "it is already an hour," indicating that a point of time has come later than would have been the case had responsibility been realized. In  1—Corinthians 4:11 , it indicates a point of time previous to which certain circumstances have existed.

 1—Corinthians 8:7 Revelation 8:1

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Used with various significations in scripture: as

1. An indefinite period, when the word 'time' gives the sense: "the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father."  John 4:21 .

2. A definite point of time, when 'moment' or 'at once' would give the sense. "The woman was made whole from that hour."  Matthew 9:22 .

3. The division of the day into twelve hours, generally considered to be from sunrise to sunset. This varied in Palestine, from ten of our hours in the winter to fourteen in the summer; so that the hours in summer would be nearly half as long again as in the winter. The hours of scripture are now usually reckoned from 6 o'clock A.M. to 6 o'clock P.M., which would make the third hour our 9 o'clock; the sixth hour our 12 o'clock; the ninth hour our 3 o'clock P.M., and so on.

This would be applicable to all the definite hours mentioned in the N.T. except in the Gospel by John. This evangelist followed the plan of reckoning from midnight to midnight. This explains the difficulty found in  John 19:14 , which represents the trial proceeding at the sixth hour, whereas  Mark 15:25 says "It was the third hour and they crucified him." A comparison of all the passages shows that the trial commenced early, and our 6 o'clock suits very well; and the crucifixion at 9 o'clock, the third hour of the Jews, agrees with Mark. The other definite times mentioned in John are in  John 1:39;  John 4:6,52,53 , and the now common method of reckoning the time will agree with all of them.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Hour. The ancient Hebrews were probably unacquainted with the division of the natural day into twenty-four parts; but they afterwards parcelled out the period between sunrise and sunset into a series of divisions distinguished by the sun's course.

The early Jews appear to have divided the day into four parts,  Nehemiah 9:3, and the night into three watches,  Judges 7:19. And even in the New Testament we find a trace of this division in  Matthew 20:1-5.

At what period the Jews first became acquainted with the division of the day into twelve hours is unknown, but it is generally supposed they learned it from the Babylonians during the captivity. It was known to the Egyptians at a very early period. They had twelve hours of the day and of the night. There are two kinds of hours, namely,

(1) the astronomical or equinoctial hour, that is, The 24th part of a civil day, and

(2) the natural hour, that is, The 12th part of the natural day, or of the time between sunrise and sunset.

These are the hours meant in the New Testament,  John 11:9; etc., and it must be remembered that they perpetually vary in length, so as to be very different at different times of he year. For the purpose of prayer the old division of the day into four portions was continued in the Temple service. As we see from  Acts 2:15;  Acts 3:1;  Acts 10:9.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Hour. The twenty-fourth part of the day. Such a mode of dividing time was not originally employed among the Hebrews. And, when the word "hour" first occurs, it is used loosely and indefinitely,  Daniel 3:6;  Daniel 3:15;  Daniel 4:33;  Daniel 5:5; as it is frequently in the New Testament,  Mark 13:32;  John 2:4; and as very commonly among ourselves. At a very early period the Egyptians divided the day into twelve hours; and the same reckoning prevailed among the Babylonians, from whom the Greeks took it. It is likely that the Jews learned and adopted it at the period of the captivity. In our Lord's time, the day, that is, the space between sunrise and sunset, was commonly distributed into twelve hours,  John 11:9; these, therefore, varied in length according to the season of the year. Generally, however, we may say that the third hour corresponded with our 9 a.m., the sixth with our noon, the ninth with our 3 p.m., etc. In  Acts 23:23 the hours of the night were reckoned from sunset; consequently the time named would nearly correspond with our 9 p.m.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Daniel 3:6 4:19,33;5:5 Matthew 8:13 Luke 12:39

With the ancient Hebrews the divisions of the day were "morning, evening, and noon-day" ( Psalm 55:17 , etc.). The Greeks, following the Babylonians, divided the day into twelve hours. The Jews, during the Captivity, learned also from the Babylonians this method of dividing time. When Judea became subject to the Romans, the Jews adopted the Roman mode of reckoning time. The night was divided into four watches ( Luke 12:38;  Matthew 14:25;  13:25 ). Frequent allusion is also made to hours ( Matthew 25:13;  26:40 , etc.). (See Day .)

An hour was the twelfth part of the day, reckoning from sunrise to sunset, and consequently it perpetually varied in length.

King James Dictionary

HOUR, n. our. L. hora also L. tempestivus, from tempus. See Time. But hour, hora, afterward came to signify a certain portion or division of the day. This has been different in different nations.

1. A space of time equal to one twenty fourth part of the natural day, or duration of the diurnal revolution of the earth. An hour answers to fifteen degrees of the equator. It consists of 60 minutes, each minute of 60 seconds, &c. 2. Time a particular time as the hour of death.

Jesus saith, woman,my hour is not yet come.  John 2

3. The time marked or indicated by a chronometer, clock or watch the particular time of the day. What is the hour? At what hour shall we meet? I will be with you at an early hour.

Good hour, signifies early or seasonably.

You have arrived at a good hour.

To keep good hours, to be at home in good season not to be abroad late, or at the usual hours of retiring to rest.

Hours, in the plural, certain prayers in the Romish church, to be repeated at stated times of the day, as matins and vespers.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

(See Day .) Ahaz' sundial implies the Jews' acquaintance with hours before the Babylonian captivity. During it, they would certainly meet with that division of time which prevailed for ages at Babylon. The Egyptians too in early times knew it, Lepsius says as far back as the 5th dynasty. Astronomers knew in ancient times the "hour," that is the 24th part of a civil day; its use in common life is said not to have begun until the fourth century A.D. The hour which is the 12th part of the natural day, between sunrise and sunset, is of the same length as the astronomical hour only at the equinoxes. In our Lord's days the Jews must have had dials, and clepsydrae or water hourglasses, as these were long known to the Persians with whom they had been so closely connected. Christ alludes to the day hours,  John 11:9, "are there not twelve hours in the day?" The 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours are mentioned often as the regular hours of prayer ( Acts 2:15;  Acts 3:1;  Acts 10:9).

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Like the word ‘day’, the word ‘hour’ is used in the Bible both specifically and generally. It may refer to a measured length of time or to an occasion or period ( Matthew 20:9;  Matthew 20:12;  Matthew 24:44;  Matthew 26:40;  Matthew 26:45;  Luke 22:53;  John 4:21;  John 5:28;  John 7:30;  John 12:27; for details see Day ; Time ).

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) Certain prayers to be repeated at stated times of the day, as matins and vespers.

(2): ( n.) A measure of distance traveled.

(3): ( n.) The time of the day, as expressed in hours and minutes, and indicated by a timepiece; as, what is the hour? At what hour shall we meet?

(4): ( n.) The twenty-fourth part of a day; sixty minutes.

(5): ( n.) Fixed or appointed time; conjuncture; a particular time or occasion; as, the hour of greatest peril; the man for the hour.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

HOUR . See Time.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Chald. שָׁעָה , Shal, Saotrh', a Monent, prop. a Look, 1. q. "the wink of an eye" [Germ. Augenblick]; Greek É Ρα ), a term first found in  Daniel 3:6;  Daniel 4:19;  Daniel 4:33;  Daniel 5:5; and occurring several times in the Apocrypha (Judith 19:8;  2 Esdras 9:44). It seems to be a vague expression for a short period, and the frequent phrase "in the same hour" means "immediately:" hence we find בְּשָׁעָה substituted in the Targum for בְּרֶצ , ִ "in a moment' ( Numbers 16:21, etc.). The corresponding Gr. term is frequently used in the same way by the N.T. writers ( Matthew 8:13;  Luke 12:39, etc.). The word Hour is sometimes used in Scripture to denote some determinate season, as "mine Hour is not yet come," "this is your Hour, and the power of darkness," "the Hour is coming," etc. It occurs in the Sept. as a rendering for various words meaning time, just as it does in Greek writers long before it acquired the specific meaning of our word "hour." Saah is still used in Arabic both for an hour and a moment.

The ancient Hebrews were probably unacquainted with the division of the natural day into twenty-four parts. The general distinctions of "morning, evening, and noonday" (comp.  Genesis 15:12;  Genesis 18:1;  Genesis 19:1;  Genesis 19:15;  Genesis 19:23) were sufficient for them at first, as they were for the early Greeks (Homer, II. 21:3, 111); afterwards the Greeks adopted five marked periods of the day (Jul. Pollux, Oom? — 1, 68; Dio Chrysost. Orat. in De Glor.), and the Hebrews parceled out the period between sunrise and sunset into a series of minute divisions distinguished by the sun's course, as is still done by the Arabs, who have stated forms of prayers for each period (Lane's Mood. Eg. vol. 1, ch. 3). (See Day).

The early Jews appear to have divided the day into four parts ( Nehemiah 9:3), and even in the N.T. we find a trace of this division in  Matthew 20:1-5. There is, however, no proof of the assertion sometimes made, that É Ρα in the Gospels may occasionally mean a space of three hours. It h'as been thought by some interpreters (see Wolfii Curae In N.T. ad  John 19:14) that the evangelist John always computes the hours of the day after the Roman reckoning, i.e. from midnight to midnight (see Pliny, Hist. Noct. 2, 79; Aul Gell. Noct. Att. 3, 2); but this is without support from Hebrew analogy, and obliges the gratuitous supposition of a reckoning also from midday (against  John 11:9).

The Greeks adopted the division of the day into twelve hours from the Babylonians (Herodotus, 2:109; comp. Rawlinson, Herod. 2:334). At what period the Jews became first acquainted with this way of reckoning time is unknown, but it is generally supposed that they, too, learned it from the Babylonians during the Captivity (Wiahner, Ant. Hebr. § 5:1, 8, 9). They may have had some such division at a much earlier period, as has been inferred from the fact that Ahaz erected a sun-dial in Jerusalem, the use of which had probably been learned from Babylon. There is, however, the greatest uncertainty as to the meaning of the word מֲִלוֹת (A.V. "degrees,"  Isaiah 38:8). (See Dial). It is strange that the Jews were not acquainted with this method of reckoning even earlier, for, although a purely conventional one, it is naturally suggested by the months in a year. Sir G. Wilkinson thinks that it arose from. a less obvious cause (Rawlinson, Herod. 2, 334). In whatever way it originated, it was known to the Egyptians at a very early period. They had twelve hours of the day and of the night (called Nau=hour), each of which had its own genius, drawn with a star on its head. The word is said by Lepsius to be found as far back as the fifth dynasty (Rawlinson, Herod. 2, 135). The night was divided into twelve equal portions or hours, in precisely the same manner as the day. The most ancient division, however, was into three watches (Ant. 63, 6, 90, 4) the first, or beginning of the watches, as it is called ( Lamentations 2:19); the middle watch ( Judges 7:19); and the morning watch ( Exodus 14:24). (See Watch). When Judaea became a province of Rome, the Roman distribution of the night into four watches was introduced; to which division frequent allusions occur in the New Testament ( Luke 12:38;  Matthew 14:25;  Matthew 13:35), as well as to that of hours ( Matthew 25:13;  Matthew 26:40;  Mark 14:37; Luke 17:59;  Acts 23:23;  Revelation 3:3). (See Cock-Crowing). There are two kinds of hours, viz. (1.) the astronomical or equinoctial hour, i.e. the twenty-fourth part of a civil day, which, although "known to astronomers, was not used in the affairs of common life till towards the end of the 4th century of the Christian sera" (Smith, Dict. Of Classical Antiq. s.v. Hora); and

(2.) the natural hour (such the Rabbis called זמניות , Καιρικαί , or temporales), i.e. the twelfth part of the natural day, or of the time between sunrise and sunset. These are the hours meant in the New Test., Josephus, and the Rabbis ( John 11:9;  Acts 5:7;  Acts 19:31; Josephus, Ant.14, 4, 3), and it must be remembered that they perpetually vary in length, so as to be very different at different times of the year. Besides this, an hour of the day would always mean a different length of time from an hour of the night, except at the equinox. From the consequent uncertainty of the term there arose the proverbial expression "not all hours are equal" (R. Joshua Up. Carpzov, App. Crit. p. 345). At the equinoxes the third hour would correspond to nine o'clock; the sixth would Always be at noon. To find the exact time meant at other seasons of the year, we must know when the sun rises in Palestine, and reduce he hours to our reckoning accordingly (Jahn, Biblio. Arch. § 101). In ancient times the only way of reckoning the progress of the day was by the length of the shadow-a mode of reckoning which was both contingent on the sunshine, and served only for the guidance of individuals. (See Shadow). By what means the Jews calculated the length of their hours-whether by dialing, by the Clepsydra or water-clock, or by some horological contrivance, like what was used anciently in Persia (Josephus, Ant. 11 6), and by the Romans (Martial, 8 Epig. 67; Juv. Sat. 10, 214), and which is still used in India (A siat. Researches, 5, 88), a servant notifying the intervals-it is now impossible to discover (see Buttinghausen, Specimen horarum Ieb. et Arab. Tr. ad Rh. 1758). Mention is also made of a curious invention called צְרוֹר שָׁעָה : by which a figure was constructed so as to drop a stone into a brazen basin every hour, the sound of which was heard for a great distance, and announced the time (Otho, Lex. Rab. s.v. Hora).

For the purposes of prayer, the old division of the day into four portions was continued in the Temple service, as we see from  Acts 2:15;  Acts 3:1;  Acts 10:9. The stated periods of prayer were the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day (Psalms 45, 17; Josephus, Anf. 4, 4, 3). The Jews supposed that the third hour had been consecrated by Abraham, the sixth by Isaac, and the ninth by Jacob (Kimchi; Sch Ö ttgen, Hor. Hebr. ad  Acts 3:1). It is probable that the canonical hours observed by the Romanists (of which there are eight in the twenty-four) are derived from these Temple hours (Goodwill Moses And Aaron, 3, 9). (See Canonical Hours).

The Rabbis pretend that the hours were divided into 1080 חלקים (minutes), and 56,848 רצעים (seconds), which numbers were chosen because they are so easily divisible (Gem. Hier. Berachoth, 2, 4; in Reland, Ant.  Hebrews 4:1, § 19). (See Time).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

our ( שעתא , sha‛ăthā' , שׁעא , she‛ā'  ; ὥρα , hō̇ra ): Hour as a division of the day does not occur in the Old Testament; the term she‛ā' ( sha‛ăthā' ) found in Dnl, is Aramaic, and as used there denotes a short period or point of time of no definite length (  Daniel 3:6 ,  Daniel 3:15;  Daniel 4:33 (Hebrew 30);   Daniel 5:5 ). The Greek hōra is commonly used in the New Testament in the same way, as "that same hour," "from that hour," etc., but it also occurs as a division of the day, as, "the third hour," "the ninth hour," etc. The Hebrews would seem to have become acquainted with this division of time through the Babylonians, but whether before the captivity we are not certain. The mention of the sun dial of Ahaz would seem to indicate some such reckoning of time during the monarchy. See Time .