Time (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. Eras.— The Bible offers insufficient data for confident generalizations regarding the methods employed at various periods for measur- ing and indicating the passage of time. We should naturally expect considerable changes in these methods as tlie Israelites passed through various phases of civilization and modes of living.

The literary records, however, do not completely reflect all these modified conditions, and just as Josephus translates the current Jewish dates of his age into their Macedonian equivalents, so earlier writers would probably date past events in accordance with their own rather than with the ancient systems of the calendar. Until the 2nd cent. B.C. we know of no fixed era from which events were dated by the Israelites. The books of the M.accabees show us the Seleucidean era (be- ginning B.C.

312) in full force. This era (minyan Yevanim ' numbering of the Greeks,' or minyan shetaroth ' numbering of documents') was the first to be adopted and the last to be rejected by the Jews ; it survived among the Egyptian Jews till the IGLli cent. A.D. The ordinary Seleucid era began with the autumn of the year B.C. 312; but Schiirer (IIJP I. i. p. 37) maintains that the * Od the Syriac lexicograpbera (Bar All, Bar Balilul) get Nestle, MaTginaXieii, p. b7.

authors of the books of the ^laccabees reckon the ytiir from the spring season, though later Jews counted from the autumn (Tishri). AVellhausen rejucts Schiirer's theory {IJG* 25$). Several of the Hellenistic cities founded along the seacoast of Juda»a and in the north had eras of their own in the Greek period (after Alexander the Great), but the onlj- exact Jewish parallel is found in the time of Simon the Maccabee (143-'2 B.C.)

' In the hundred and seventieth j-ear (of the Seleuci- dean era) was the yoke of the heatlien taken away | from Israel. And the people be^'an to write in their instruments and contracts, " In the first year of Simon the great high priest and captain and leader of the Jews" ' (I Mac Hi'"). No documents so dated are extant, but it has been doubtfully conjectured [but see art. Money in vol. iii. p. ] 42411'.]

that some silver coins bearing the vear j numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and the inscription c-Vm- j np^F, etc., refer to this era. That the era of Simon ■wa.s of short duration is certain ; even in 1 Mac. (14^) it is only employed side by side with the ! more permanently used Selucidean epoch. The prevalent method of dating events both in OT and NT is by regnal years of monarchs, or by synchronism with other events [see CmiOXOLOGY]. 1 he Kxodus from Eg\ pt was sometimes taken as an era(l K 6>, cf.

Ex 19', Nu 33^^); and Ezekiel (1') perhaps turns the refonnation of Josiah (B.C. Ui^-l) to this purpose. It is unlikely that the 'thirtieth year' refers to Ezekiel's own age [but see Uudde in Expos. Times, Oct. I'JOO, p. 3911'., and Aug. I'JOl, p. 52of.], though the patriarchal dates are often collated with the ages of various char- acters. At the beginning of the Christian era, the Jews were compelled to adopt the j-ear of the Homan emperors as their norm ((!raetz. History of the Jew, Eng. tr.

ii. 1.S4). The erection of Solomon's temple (1 K 9'"), the commencement of the Egjptian entanglement (Gn 15'^), the Baby- lonian Exile (Ezk 33-' 40'), and such natural phenomena as a remarkable earthquake (' two years before the ea,rtli<iuake,' Am 1'), were also in a minor degree used as eras.

Soon after the time t< Christ, the Jews must have devised a method of counting by anno mundi, for the Talmud assumes that something like 4u00 years separated the destruction of the temple from the Creation. The dating by A.M. first occurs in the Seder Ilndoroth, a work attributed to Jose ben Chalafta. The Jewish system ditt'ers from the Dionj'sian era (6th cent. A.D. ), and, while Ussher dates tlie Christian era as 4UU4 a.m., the current Jewish numbering assigns the year 3760 A.M.

to the beginning of that era. Thus the Jewish year beginning September 1901 is .^UU'2 A.M. Jews in later times occasionally used the Mohammedan era, and dated from the Hegira. There is no indication whatever that the Jews ever turned the jubilee period to calendar use in the .same manner in which the Olympiads were employed. They nmy, however, have niiide use of the idea of the dor or 'generation.' ii. The Year.

— In tlie main, the Jewish year was lunar, with corrections designed to bring about a more or less exact correspondence with the solar .seasons. It seems to have been the view of the writer of the first report of the Flood (P) that the oldest Hebrew year was a pnre lunar year, containing 12 lunar months and 354 days. In Gn 7" (cf. 8'^) the Flood is said to have lasted from the 17th of the 2iid month in one year to the 27tli of the 2nd month in the next year, or I year and II days.

This reckoning, as Benzinger sug- gests (Ucb. Arch. p. 198), arose through the trans- laliim of a solar year into its lunar equivalent. The actual duration of the Flood was in the general Semitic tradition a year, meaning a solar year of 365 days.

' In the presupposition that the oldest ages had a pure moon year, P, when dating the Flood, uses such a year as the basis, and shows his archa'ological knowledge and his pretended historical exactitude by not giving the round figure a year, but he gives the right total in au inferential manner.' It may, however, well ba that we have here a genume tradition of an ancient pure lunar year ; moreover, even when solar corrections were made, some Jewish years were more or less purely lunar.

From another factor in the Flood narrative, the 150 days, which amounted to 5 months, a year of 12 x 30 = 300 days has been inferred (Schwarz, Dcr Judisclie KnUnder, p. 7). So much is certain, that in the historical time the Hebrew year was solar, though the months were lunar. The Calendar must have been roughly congruous with the cycle of natural life. The old Arabs had a sun-year of 365 days before Mohammed converted it into the pure lunar year of 354 days, which still prevails.

The fact that solar considerations must early have afl'ected the Hebrew Calendar is obvious from the cycle of feasts which on the one hand fell in definitely fixed lunar months, and on the other hand coincided with equally definite seasons of the solar year. In the pure lunar 3'ear, Passover would, in a period of about 34 years, make the round of all the four seasons (Schwarz, p. 9). This was an impossibility in the Jewish Calendar.

How the correction was eftected we have no means of discovering. The lunar character of the Calendar must have prevented tlie intercalation of an odd 10 or 11 ilaj's annually (as Lewisolm suggests, Gcsr-h. und Syst. d, K. p. 6), yet we are nowhere told of an intercalary month, unless the' law as to the deferred Passover (Nu 9'°) be held to be some indication of it. The Talmud (Snnhcd. \2n) proves the biblical knowledge of the intercalary month from 1 K 4', but the argument is ineliective.

On the other hand, 1 Cli 27, where arrangements for the succession of roj-al officers are only made for 12 months, cannot bo held to jjrove the total ignorance of intercalation of a thirteenth month. The knowledge of this method was very ancient in Babj-lon, an intercalated Elul being older than the intercalated Adar. The latter, being sacred to Ashur, must have been the work of astronomers standing under Assyrian authority (Jastrow, Rel. of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 463).

The Babylonian jear seems to have consisted of 12 lunar months of 30 days each, intercalary months being added by the priests when neces.sary (\V. Muss-Arnolt, 'The Names of the Assyro- Babylonian Months and their Regents,' in JBL vol. xi. p. 72 f.) In later times, according to Strassmaier and Epping {Astronomisches aiit Babylon), months of 30 days alternated with months of 29 days (Nisan, Tammuz, Elul, Tishri, Kislev, Shebat, and Adar had 30 days, while the ethers had only 29).

Muss-Arnolt expresses him- self as uncertain whether the intercalary months were fixed, or were added whenever the priestly directors of the Calendar discovered that the dis- agreement between it and the true year had become serious. We may fairly assume that the latter wa.s the method in am lent Israel, at all events till well into the jiost-exilic period. With- out any definite rules a month was probably intercalated on occasion, when the discrepancy was sulficiently marked (Schwarz, p.

14) to render correction imperative. Some have sought to fin<l the key to the ancient intercalations in the jubilee perio<i8 (Zuckermann, Ucher Subbatjuhrryldus und Jobcl/ieriodc ; Schwarz, pp. 10-12), with 18 or 19 intercalary months inserted in every 49 or 50 years. All such exact calculations, including tho.so ba:ied on eras of 8 or 84 years, and more particularly on the Metonic cycle of 19 years, certainly belong tc the post, Christian period.

Jewish tradition is very consistent in its evidence that the old method of empiric intercalation both of a monthly daj- and a yearly month prevailed fur many centuries after Christ (see New Moon). Schiirer (Appendix iii. to Division i. vol. ii. ) expounds tlie generally accepted view of Jewish scholars as against Wieseler (see, however, Chronology). Throughout the Middle Ages the empiric method partially held its ground.

Nevertheless, calculation (of which we have early indications in Enoch 72 ff.) must have much aided observation, and we read of family traditions in the case of Gamaliel {liosh Ha-shana '25a), and the mean duration of the lunar month (about 21).^ days) must have been known long before the destruction of the temple (see the evidence for this in Schwarz, p. 19). IJy the middle of the 2nd cent. A.D. the calculated calendar was on the way to acceptance (Smihed.

12a), but it was not fully adopted till the 4th cent, under Hillel II. In the inter\ening period the proclamation of New Moon and of the intercalary months was still dependent on the evidence of eye-witnesses as to the re- appearance of the moon on the one hand, and the relation of the lunar months to the solar seasons on the other.

But astronomical calcula- tion was certainly utilized as well, and, by ob- serving 2 days' new moon in places distant from the Patriarchate, some of the difficulties of the Diaspora were removed. (See on this and on other points of the Rabbinic calendar, Zuckermann, Material, zur Ent. dir altjiid. Zeitrechnung).

The fixing of the Day of Atonement was, how- ever, a perennial difficulty until a calculated calendar %\=as finally adopted, based on the Aletonic cycle with variations which do not belong to the Bcope of the present article. Beginning of the Year.

— 'The Hebrew year had begun in the autumn with the month of Sep- tember ; but side by side with this West-Semitic calendar there had also been in use in Palestine another calendar, that of Babylonia, according to \\hich the year began with Nisan or March. It was Mie Babylonian Calendar which was now introduced for ritual purposes. While the civil year still began in the autumn, it was ordained that the sacred year should begin in the spring.

The sacred year was detennined by the annual festivals, and the first of these festivals was hence- forth to be the Passover. The beginning of the new year was henceforth fixed by the Passover moon ' (Sayce, EHH p. 178). According to Dill- mann {Monatsbericlite, Societas Regia Seientiarum, Berlin, ISSl) both the autumn and the spring new years are pre-exilic.

The autumn era was, he holds, an economic rather than a calendar year ; but, as Nowack well remarks, to an agricultural people the economic year must have coincided with the calendar year. That at all events an economic year began in the autumn is clear from such phrases as n;;n nx>7, niijri n;!pn (' the end of the year,' Ex 23" 34, , cf. I S 20) used in describing the autumn harvest festival.

The narrative of the Flood places the commencement on the 17th of the 2nd month, which on an autumn reckoning would correspond with the rainy season. The sabbatical year began in autumn (Lv 25°), though it was not at the beginning of a calendar year (being on the 10th of the month). The royal years also at one time began in the autumn, and the synchronism of the Jewish events with the regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah (46^) seems to sup- port the same conclusion.

Dillmann at all events mfers that the second half of the Jewish roval year correspondeil with the first half of the Baby- lonian royal year (the fourth year of Jehoiakim corresponds both to the first year of Nebuchad- nezzar, Jer 25', and to the twenty-first of his pre- decessor Nabopolasar, in which the battle ol Carchemish was fought). But besides the autumn year a spring era seems abo to have been pre-exUic. The use of the term .

i:;n njsc'n for the resumption of royal campaigns (2 S 111, j K 2(F-^- =«, 2 Ch SG'") points to a spring era. So also does the order of the feasts. In the oldest form (Ex 23'-'"'), as well as in J (Ex 34'«-2-), and Dent. (16'"), the cycle begins with Passover and ends with Tabernacles.

A Babylonian in- Huence, to which was, however, due the intro- duction of the new names for the months, need not therefore be sought for this fixing of the be- ginning of the year in the spring (Ex 12-, and in Priestly Code throughout), but the period of the Exile no doubt did mark the completion of the change from the autumnal to the vernal equinox. By this arrangement the order of the months began in Nisan, but the succession of years began in Tishri.

Josephus is clearly accurate when he says (Ant. I. iii. 3) : ' Moses appointed that Nisan, which is the same with Xanthicus, should be the first month for their festivals, because he brought them out of Egypt in that month : so that this month began the year, as to all the solemnities they observed to the honour of God — although he preserved the original order of the months as to selling and buying and other ordinaiy afiairs.' The Mishna {Bosh Hasliana i.

1) enumerates four new years — Nisan (for kings and the cycle of feasts), Eiul (for the tithes of cattle), Tishri (for years, as at present in the Jewish Calendar, sab- batical years and juhUees, and other agricultural purpo.ses), Shebat (for trees). ' During the Exile,' says Benzinger, ' the new year seems to have bepn calculated not on the first but on the 10th of tht 7th month (Lv 25', Ezk 40), only later was the great Atonement festival fixed on this day.'

But it may be doubted whether the 10th of the 7th month was ever the beginning of a calendar year. But the Ist of Tishri with its rite of blowing the s/iiphdr (see Trumpet), and its later spiritual associations as a day of penitence, acquired great importance in the Jewish Calendar. (On the history of the New Year Liturgy see Friedmann iaJQIi, vol. i. p. 62 f.) DivisioTis of the Year. — The regular Hebrew word for 'year' is nj;- (Assyr. sanu 'to change,' whence sattu 'year').

In Daniel I~* means both an indefinite period of time (like the Heb. m;), and more definitely a year (Dn 4 and 7^). Buhl com- pares a simUar definition of meaning in the case of the word XP'^""'. w'hich in new Greek signifies 'year.' In Daniel, again (12'), we meet with a use ot nyto for ' year,' though elsewhere the word more generally denotes an appointed or recurrent period such as the feast (exclusive of the Salibath and New Moon).

Another word ]=i, which occurs only in late Hebrew (Ec 3', Neh 2") as a generic term for 'time,' had already acquired in canonical Hebrew (Est 9-''-") the sense of season or festival, which it conveyed in Rabbinic Hebrew. The ordinary seasons of the year were also distin- guished in Hebrew as f :p ' summer ' and I'll 'autumn and winter.' August is usually the warmest month, Eehruary the coldest in Juda?a. The l"in was further divided into two parts (Dt 11') by the .

tjv 'earlier rain' (October) and snp)r) ' the later rain ' (spring equinox). Generic tenns for the dillerences of temperature were i? 'cold' (Gn 8^) and on 'heat' {ib.) The sowing period was known as jn; (ib.), the harvest-time as Tyjj (mid-April till mid-June, the barley and wheat- harvest being meant). •The Babylonian year was divided into ret mtti 'begin- ning ot the year,' mitU satli ' the middle ol the year,' ana kit salti 'end ol the year.' Two of the terms are paralleled in Hebrew iii.

Months. — The Hebrew months have always been lunar, and extended from one now moon to anollier. The oldest Semitic word for month was arc/iu (nn;), which properly signilies the ' beginning; of the month' (Muss-Arnolt, p. 73. Much of the foUowinfc information is derived from this excel- lent antlioritv). The same word appears in Ara- ma-an (Kzr 6", Dn 4*), Phoenician, and Ethiopic. In Hebrew the word is common in the pre-exUic passages, but it became entirely superseded by aih.

This last word, properly ' new-moon ' (which see), is employed (like the Assyrian uldixu) only for the beginninj; of the month, uj' other Semitic peoples ; its u.se for ' month ' was an innovation of the Israelites. There are three sets of terms to distinguish the biblical months — («) old (Canaanite) names, (6) numbers, and (c) the Babylonian names. (a) Of the first class only four have survived : these names are all derived from climatic and economic conditions.

Similarly, the earliest epithets of the months among the IJabj'Ionians are connected with agriculture and the pastoral life. Abib (3';!< month of the ripening ears, Ex IS* etc.), subsequently the 1st month. Ziv (II month of flowers, 1 K 6'), subsequently t)ie '2nd month. Ethanim (C-J.-N month of perennial streams, 1 K 8-), sub.sequeatly the 7th month. Bui ('?i: rain month, 1 K 6^), subsequently the 8th month.

The last two names also occur in Phoenician in- scriptions ; Etlmnim having been found in Cyprus (niiildle of 4tli cent. B.C.) and lUd in Sidon (4tli cent. B.C. ; see Driver in HoLjarth's Authority and Ari/ifBoliif/i/, pp. 137, 13S, and Buhl-Ge.senius, s.v.)

(6) In ihu time of the Exile these old Canaanite names were dropped, and the months were dis- tinguislied by numerals, as in parts of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Kings (in the latter the old names are explained by numbers, IK 6'-^ 8-'), lastlj' in Ha"gai (1' 2') and Zecliariah (1' 7'). See Nowack, JleB. Arc/iaologie, i. p. 2i7. ((■) Prom the ExUe the new I5al)ylonian names begin to lind a delinite place in tlie Hebrew Calendar.

The proofs for tlie Babylonian origin of these names may be found in Muss-Arnolt, in Schrader, COT {n. 69). Cf. Schiirer, Appendix iii. Ol the twelve names only seven occur in Scripture, but the whole twelve ap[)ear in the Meriillnlh Tnanith, which in its original form dates before the Christian era. (1) Nisan ]<}•}, HovSiitis, Xanthicus, March-April. The En^'Ush equivalents are inexact : Nisan mostly corre- fpond."* to part of March and part of April. Nisan occurs in Nth ii, Eat S'. The Or.

form N/ri. (Ni/«-«l.]) occurs in 1 Et 0«, Ad. r.8t l. and often in Joi^phus. The .Macedonian .\an- Ihu-iu ia found in 2 .Mac 113US3. aa. The first month in the BalA'lonian ^ear is Ni-ita.a(7i)-nu, from n««u (Ueb. VS3) to move,' or 'start.' It is the openin;^ month of the ccclusi- ai«lical vear. Thut tlie vernal equinox occurred in Nisan is •Itcsted by Josephus (Ant. I. x. 5) and also in cuneiform lit<.'r.ilure (Muss-Arnolt, p. 77).

Nisan corresponded to the llrst £odi;i'-al 8ii,'n (Aries) in which the vernal e<iuinox fell. That Jo8' phus frequently uses the .Macedonian names as eciuivalent lo the Heh..llal». does not imply that he thought that the two •eries ot months began on idenlical days. ('2) lyyar tx, 'kpreinlaios, April-May. Not named in Scripture, but found in Mlshns, Rogh HiiKlaina i. 3; Jos. Ant. vni. iii. 1 ("la/), 11 i/pinnnrst . tl (H.a^); Bab. o-a-ru.

Derivation uncertam ; perhaps connected witli liK • to t)e bright ' (so iJelitzsch), or TK ' to send forth, open, germinate,' whence arc ' flower ' (ho M\nw-AriMilt). This would make the meaning eoiiivaleiit to Zia and April {ajterirf). The Megillath Ta'anilli idtntilles lyyar with the 'ind monlb mentioned in 1 Moo 1S°1. •The DIoscorlnthlusot 2 Msc II" is quit* obscure (cf. note In ItVm). It is hareiv probable that the author wrote Dion- eunuitha reading of U.L.)

, the name of the third Cretan montli (see Kuiphausen s note Id KauUsch's Apokr. ad loc.) TIME (3) Sivan i^p, Aalo-toy, May-June. i'Gc Est 89 ; Mishna, Shekalim iii. 1, etc. Gr. "Steuit (Bar 1»). also 2(jij:-aE>. ; Bab. gi'ma(n)-nu, pronounced later ti-vanu. Uciilz^b {Uet/rtw and Assj/rian, p. 16) derives from tamu to appoint' (DC), Ilaupt from asamu to mark.' (4) Tammoz nee, UdyefioSf June-July. The word but not the month mentioned in Bible (Kzk 8*)k Mishna, Tdanith iv. 6 ; Bub. dxt-uzu.

LXX bad Uxu^i^. (5) Ab 3K, Ayos, July-Au<^8t. Not mentioned in Bible. Mishna, Pcsachim iv. 6, etc. ; Bab. a-hu', Jo8. Ant. iv. iv. 7, 'A;3a [Niese reads 2a,5a]. Delitzsch derives (rom Assyr. abxt 'hostile' (from excessive heat of month), Uaupt from ctbe bulrushes (cf. Job 9'» n:K), the season in which bulrushes were cut for building purposes. This, with two other months, was consecrated by the Baby- lonians to building. (6) Elul h\h^, Tofyiriatosy August-September.

Nehftl'; Mishna, AVjfjrn^tm iii. l.etc.; 'E>K!t;x, 1 Mac 1427; Bab. lUuIu. Perhaps from '?'>' (alaiu) to shout for joy, inasmuch as the month represented the resurrection of Tammuz-Adonia (Muss-Arnolt). (7) Tishri n^jiSB/TTep^fpeTalos, September-October. Not named in Scripture. Mi.shna, She^aliin iii. 1, etc.; Gr. Onrpi ; Jo9. Ant. viii. iv. 1 [as amended by Hudson ; Niese reads 'AQCfiu); Rib. tish-ri-tum. From surru 'begin, 'dedicate.'

Tlie AssjTians, like the Jews, had two new year days— Nisan for the sacred year, Tishri for the civil. The Seleucidean year began in Nisan, the Arsacidan with Tishri (Epping and Strass- maier, Astrononmchen aus Babi/lon, p. 177). The month was dedicated to the sun-god, and Halevy (M^laJufes de critiq^ie et d'hifttoire, p. 178) conjectures that this originated the later Jewish association of Tishri with the Creation and the Day of Judgment. (8) Marcheshvan P.y'CI'?. ^«>Ii October-November.

Not named in Scripture. Mishna, Ta'anith i. 3, etc.; Jos. Ma/>«w«»t:« ; Bab. arachsamna ('eighth month ')='rPif' HI*. Original fonn probably icpmi, whence pcnio {^ and D being often interchanged in later Babylonian). Modem Hebrew re- garded Heshvan as the name of "the month {mar being taken to mean 'drop,' 'rainy season')- Dillmann and Staile see in the Bab. name of this month a relic of the oldest method of count- ing the months by numbers and not by names. See Siegfried- Stade, Diet. g.v. RT.

(9) Kislev i!:??, 'AireXXatos, November-December. Zee 71, Neh 1 ; Mishna, Rosh Hashana i. S, etc.; Gr. XawiAiw (1 ilac P etc ; Jos. Aiit. xii. v. 4, -/.tte-Xtu) \ in Palmyrene In- scriptions ^iSd3 ; Bab. ktsUmu. Derivation uncertain. (10) Tebeth n^n, Av5waios, December-January. Est 218; Mishna, Ta'anith iv. 5, etc.; Jos. T:2tSo( {Aiit. xi. V. 4, but see Niese); Bab. (ebetum. Tebu (Heb. V3t3)=to sink,' 'dtp.' The rainy season begins in 10th month. {11} Shebat 05y» Hep^Tios, January-February.

Zee 17 ; Mishna, liosh Ua»haiui i. 1 ; Or. ^^«t (1 Mac 10^) ; Bab. slia-la-tu, (12) Adar iitt, AiWpoy, February- March. Kreq. in Esth., Ezr (ii^; Mishna, 5/i^i:fi/''m i.I, etc.;A3«^, 1 Mao 7*'; Jos. Ant. iv. viii. 40, etc.; Hah. addaru. Delitzsch derives from a root 'to be dark' in contrast to am. It was, says Muss-Arnolt, the name of this month that induce<l loriner jiVfstigators to derive the Heb. names from Persian, for Adar is also a Persian month name.

(See Benfey, Monatitnavxen einiiirr alter Vulker). Tli? intercalated month was a second Adar (Heb. •Jg' i^t, SlegUla i, 4, or i^t!) iv. Weeks and Days.— The week of seven davs (yiD^) is an obvious derivative of the lunar inontli, for the week torresponds rouglily to the i)hase8 of the moon. The discrejwincy wouhl not aliect the Hebrew week, for there is no indication that tlio new moon in historical times coincided with the bejonnin^ of the week.

The Assyrians and Ilaby- lonians knew the seven-day weiK, and tlie week began with tlie moon, whereas the Hebrew week ran regularly through the wlu)Ie year, especially when tiio weekly Sabbath replace*! the new moou in importance as a sacred day. Nowack (ii. 215) unnecessarily assumes that tlie Israelites probably Iwrrowed the week from the liabylonians.

He, with others (see Holzinger on K\ 12^), detects 766 TIME TIMNAH traces of an older Hebrew week of ten days (Gn 24", Ex VI->), but this is very doubtful. It would perhaps fit iu with the idea of a year of 3G0 days (traces of a thirty-day month being detected by Nowack in Nu 20=», Dt 34", ef. 21", as well as in the Flood narrative).

Driver holds that ' it is ditli- cult not to agree with Schrader, Sayce, and other Assyi iologists in regarding the week of seven days, ended by a Sabbatn, as an institution of Baby- lonian origin ' {op. cit. p. 18). The week thus is presupposed by the Creation narrative, and is not derived from it. ' In other words, the week de- termined the "days" of Creation, not the daj's of Creation the week' (ib.) This may well be, and yet the Hebrew week not necessarily a derivative rrora Baiiyion.

(Jastrow iias shown that the Hebrew Creation narrative is more independent of Babylonian parallels than has usually been sup- posed. JQR xiii. p. 620 ir.) See, further, on this subject, Jensen in Ztschr. f. deutsche Wort- forschung, Sept. 1900, p. 153 tt'. ; and art. Sabbath above, p. 319. In the NT (as in neo-Hebrew) the week is termed vdjifSaTon, and the days of the week were numbered, not named.

The eve of the Sabbath (Friday) was called TTopaff/cew) (Mt 2V-, Lk 23", Jn ItH"-"; wpd- aa^^aTov Alk 15", Jtli 8'). Mondays and Thursdays acquired special importance in the later Jewish life, for the public reading of the Law and the holding of law-courts occurred on those days (see Schiirer, ii. 1-83, 190). Schwarz (Judischc Kalender, p. 7) sug- gests that the num ering of the Christian Ferice was derived from the Heb. usage njB'3 'V'^-f'. 'JS' \\atc). See, however, fdeler, Handbuch, ii. 180.

The Babylonians divided the day (o'l') into equal parts by sun-watches, and were also acquainted with the 60 system (minutes and seconds). The Syrian peoples may have acquired similar know- ledge from the Babylonians, but there is no trace of this among the Israelites in the pre-exilic period. There was an important difference be- tween the Israelites and Babylonians, for, while the former began the day at sunset, the latter began the day with the morning.

There are, according to most modern commentators, indi- cations of the Babylonian reckoning in the lirst chapter of Genesis and, according to Dillmann, in Ex 12«- '8, Lv 23^-. The chaotic darkness (Gn 1") lies behind tlie reckoning ; with the creation of light began the first morning, and the tirst day extended till the next morning (so Dillmann). The reckoning from evening to evening became the exclusive Jewish method ' with the triumph of the Law.'

The system is also met with among the Arabs, Athenians, and (jauls (cf. Pliny, HiV ii. 79). The evening-morning day was the ipi a^;; of Dn 8" (though Driver and others explain the phrase in Daniel to moan half-daj-s). Cf. the v\rx$iiiiepov of 2 Co 11^. There was no e.\act division of the day into parts before the Exile, the natural order being followed : a-ij; ' evening,' i,?!: ' morn- ing,' and cnn^f 'mid-day.'

The day declined (Jg 19), perhaps with reference to shadows on a sun- dial (so Aloore, but cf. Jer 6'' ; see Dial), the evening turned in 2t;; n^:? (Gn 24'^) ; there were also terms for the evenin" twilight when the cool sea-breeze blew ("j^f'j Job 24", cf. Dvn rn^ Gn 3); the dawn ascended (ins-ii n^'V Gn 19"> 32=^); compare such expressions as 'when the day was hot'(cv,T en Gn IS', cf. 1 S 11"). In neo-Hebrew there were other phrases of a similar nature (Mislina, Berakhuth i.)

We meet in the Bible with parts of the day described as the time when certain occupations were usual ; as the time when girls were accustomed to fetch the water re- quired for domestic use (Gn 24") ; 'while the day was still gieat' (Gn 29') is another similar phrase, I bat it indicates an earlier point in the afternoon ; the time of bringing the meal-offering (1 K IS* and of the evening sacrifice (Ezr y, Dn 9''). These last two refer to the same point of time.

D'l' sometimes means ' day ' in contradistinction tc 'night' (nS;S) Gn 29', sometimes it represents the civU day of 24 hours, including night (Gn P etc.) The phrase D:;^i'.7 j'5 ' between the two evenings (Ex 16'- etc.), the time at which the paschal lamb and (Ex 29'°etc. ) the daily evening offering were brought, represents some period in the late after- noon. The Hebrews also had terms for the days in relation to one another — c»r¥ ' the previous even- ing,' '^iD?

or ^cnx 'yesterday,' ^^o ' to-morrow,' ti\s\^ ' the day before yesterday.' But they did not divide the days into hours until late ; in fact, tLo custom lonw persisted of counting by portions of the day. The term yj-i (in derivation = ' moment,' movimentum) meant an 'instant,' or a longer, but still very brief, interval of time, the chief idea being suddenness or rapid passage. -;'y' ' hour ' is Aramaic (Dn 3*), and is common in Syr. and in later Hebrew.

' Originally it denoted anjf small interval of time, and was only gradually hxed to what we call an " hour " ' ( Driver). The hours of the Mishna differed in duration, as they were reckoned as j^th of the actual day. Earlier than the division of the day into hours was the division of the ni;,'ht into three watches (.Tjiajx, n-ib;-N), La 2'9, Jg 7'", Ex 14=-«, 1 S 11". The threefold division continued into post-Roman times, 1st cent.

[Bera- kkoth 36) ; but the Roman di\asion into four watches was also known (ib.- cf. Mk 13*, where all four watches are referred to: 'in the evening' d^^, 'at midnight ' fieaoyvKTiOv, ' at cock-crowing ' dXficTpo- (puviai, or ' in the morning ' vpwt), and these ex- tended from six to six o'clock. Cock-crow is an interesting note of time (Lk 22°), to which con- siderable importance was attached by Rabbinical Jews.

There is still a morning benediction in the Jewish liturgy to be recited at cock-crow. I. Abrahams.