The earliest measure of time on record is the day—'The evening and the morning were the first day'(). Here the word 'day' denotes the civil or calendar day of twenty-four hours, including 'the evening,' or natural night, and the 'morning.' or natural day. It is remarkable that in this account 'the evening,' or natural night, precedes 'the morning,' or natural day. Hence the Hebrew compound 'evening-morning' which is used by Daniel () to denote a civil day. In fact, the Jewish civil day began, as it still does, not with the morning, but the evening—thus the Sabbath commences with the sunset of Friday, and ends with the sunset of Saturday.
The inconveniences resulting from a variable commencement of the civil day, earlier or later, according to the different seasons of the year, as well as the equally varying duration of the natural day and night, must have been very considerable, and are sensibly felt by Europeans when traveling in the East, where the ancient custom in this matter is still observed. These inconveniences must be less obvious to the people themselves, who know no better system; yet they were apparent to several ancient nations—the Egyptians, the Ausonians, and others—and induced them to reckon their civil day from midnight to midnight, as from a fixed invariable point; and this usage has been adopted by most of the modern nations of Europe. We thus realize the advantage of having our divisions of the day, the hours, of equal duration, day and night, at all times of the year; whereas among the Orientals, the hours, and all other divisions of the natural day and night, are of constantly varying duration, and the divisions of the day vary from those of the night, excepting at the equinoxes.
The natural day was at first divided into three parts, morning, noon, and evening, which are mentioned by David as hours or times of prayer ().
The natural night was also originally divided into three parts, or watches (; ). The first, or beginning of the watches, is mentioned in; the middle watch, in; and the morning watch, in Exodus 24. Afterwards the strictness of military discipline among the Greeks and Romans introduced an additional night-watch. The second and third watches of the night are mentioned in , and the fourth in . The four are mentioned together by our Lord, in , and described by the terms 'the late watch;' 'the midnight;' 'the cock-crowing;' and 'the morning.' The precise beginning and ending of each of the four watches is thus determined:
1. 'The late' began at sunset and ended with the third hour of the night, including the evening dawn, or twilight. It was also called 'eventide' (), or simply 'evening' ().
2. 'The midnight' lasted from the third hour till midnight.
3. 'The cock-crowing' lasted from midnight till the third hour after, or to the ninth hour of the night. It included the two cock-crowings, with the second of which it ended.
4. 'Early' lasted from the ninth to the twelfth hour of the night, or sunrise, including the morning dawn, or twilight. It was also called 'morning,' or 'morning-tide' ().
The division of the day into twelve hours was common among the Jews after the captivity in Babylon. The word hour first occurs in the book of Daniel (); and it is admitted by the Jewish writers that this division of the day was borrowed by them from the Babylonians. Our Lord appeals to this ancient, and then long-established, division, as a matter of public notoriety: 'Are there not twelve hours in the day?' ().
This, however, was the division of the natural day into twelve hours, which were therefore variable according to the seasons of the year, at all places except the equator; and equal, or of the mean length, only at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes; being longer in the summer half-year, and shorter in the winter. The inconvenience of this has already been intimated.
The first hour of the day began at sunrise; the sixth hour ended at mid-day, or noon; the seventh hour began at noon; and the twelfth hour ended at sunset.
The days of the week had no proper names among the Hebrews, but were distinguished only by their numeral order [WEEK].
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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