Day, night, morning, evening and "between the evenings"

DEFINITION of important words in the Bible: Since there were no wristwatches at the time of the Old Testament (OT), people were dependent on determining the time mainly on the basis of the visible position of the sun. Sunrise, sun peak (noon) and sunset were the three most important time frames of a day. During the night, the moon, the wanderings of the constellations and the beginning of the birdsong in the morning served as time orientation.

In our modern calendar, a day always begins at midnight. But in Israel a biblical (= Hebrew, Israeli) calendar day began and ended already after sunset. This was not only the case before and at the time of Jesus, but it is still the case in Israel today. Depending on the context, the biblical day means either a full calendar day (24 hours) or only the light-day (12 hours; thus the bright phase of the calendar day), which separates the night (12 hours) (cf. Jn 11:9-10): 

God's creation began when it was still dark (evening), because the heavens, the earth and the sea were already there before God said "let there be light". This is important. Literally it says:

Gen 1:1-3: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was [or: became] without form and void [lit.: tohu wabohu = chaos and disorder], and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."

The word "was" is also translated as " became" in some Bibles (Elberfelder, DaBhaR). In most Bibles the word "was" is usually written because another meaning seemed illogical to many theologians. It is not important whether "was" or "became" is written, because no matter which word is used, the fact is that in any case the earth was in a chaotic disordered condition (i.e. "was") before God began creation and filled earth with new life. The words "desolate and empty" are better translated from the Hebrew meaning "tohu wa-bohu" as "chaos and confusion". This would mean that the earth could very well be millions of years old (as the geological strata and science would confirm), but at some point (for whatever reason) destruction and chaos arose (Is 45:18; Jer 4:23). According to this, God would have filled the earth with new life within 6 days, while the skeletons of past creatures were still in the geological layers. Some churches suspect destruction caused by Satan's fall and rebellion against God (Is 14:12-14; Ezek 28:14-17). Others believe that God destroyed the previous world to create a new better one, as the comparison with the Flood shows. We do not know all this, but science itself gives many answers, because not only the moon (see the many craters), but also the earth has been bombarded several times by gigantic asteroids and thus partly destroyed, whereby the age of the big impacts is usually dated millions of years back. All these theses are not important in our context (day of the resurrection of Jesus). The point here is much more to show that every biblical day begins with the evening (after sunset), as it does in the Israeli calendar to this day.

The "light" mentioned in Gen 1:3 refers to the light of the presence of God (1Jn 1:5), because the sun was made on the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19). God can produce light at will and turn it off again. We see an example in the book of Acts where the prison was filled with light at night and Paul was set free (Acts 12:6-7). Paul had even seen a light from heaven during the day (Acts 22:6-11). Furthermore, God is a spirit being and does not need the physical light of the sun at all, since the spirit world is a completely different dimension. But the plants and animals on earth need the daily physical light of the sun to be able to live.

In Genesis it literally says: "And God called the light day [Hebrew yom] and the darkness night [Hebrew layil]. And there was evening [Hebrew ereb] and and there was morning [Hebrew boqer], the day [yom] one/first" (Gen 1:5). So the first day of the calendar of God consisted of the evening and the morning and all the following days as well. The evening was the beginning of the night and the morning was the beginning of the day. In the colloquial language of Israel evening and morning together were "one day".God did not say "and there was morning and there was evening (erev)", but "and there was evening (erev) and there was morning". This is a big difference. And today's Israelites see it quite the same way, beginning each calendar day (not just the Sabbath) in the evening after sunset. Every biblical day begins with evening and ends with evening. The Hebrew evening (erev) in its biblical definition comes BEFORE the light day and at the end of the calendar day. Both mean "evening" in Hebrew, as any Israelite can attest. To understand the Bible, we must think like the Hebrews at that time and not bring today's English definitions into the Bible, which no one knew at the time of Jesus.

Since the territory of Israel is relatively close to the equator, night (1st-12th hour = 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and day (1st-12th hour = 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) are of about the same length, but only on the day of the equinox consist of exactly 12 hours each. Otherwise, either the day (summer) or the night (winter) is somewhat longer. 

However, the biblical day begins in the evening after sunset, not from the morning. There are some theologians who think that in the story of Creation the day began with the creation of light, that is to say with the morning, and then ended at the end of the following night, and that it was only in the post-exile period (Babylon) that a new method of calculating the day was introduced, one that makes the day begin after sunset. But this is opposed by Lev 23:32, since here already in earlier times the keeping of the High Sabbath of the year was ordered "from evening till evening again". Besides, the earth was already there before God said "Let there be light". Some theologians think that God would not begin a day with darkness; but it is more logical that darkness should prevail first, and then light should prevail over darkness, and not the other way around. Otherwise the darkness of the night would symbolically triumph over the light of the same calendar day. Biblically there are many more reasons for the beginning of a day after sunset, both in the Old (OT) and New Testament (NT). See also the definition of the Sabbath. To begin the day in darkness and end it with the light is at any rate much better than to have all days begin and end in the deepest darkness (midnight), as is the case in our present Roman Catholic (Gregorian) calendar.

The most important aspect in our context is that the biblical or the Jewish calendar day, even in the time of Jesus, did not begin with the sunrise and also not at midnight, but after every sunset. Jesus never complained about this and did not order any change. The Jews have therefore kept the Sabbath from sunset to sunset for thousands of years. This is a calendar day for them (and it was also for Jesus). This fact can be proven many times, for example Wikipedia writes under the terms "Jewish calendar" and Sabbath: 

"The Jewish day is of no fixed length. Based on the classic rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 1:5 ("There was evening and there was morning, one day"), a day in the rabbinic Hebrew calendar runs from sunset (the start of "the evening") to the next sunset. The same definition appears in the Bible in Leviticus 23:32, where the holiday of Yom Kippur is defined as lasting "from evening to evening". Halachically, a day ends and a new one starts when three stars are visible in the sky" (Wikipedia). 

It is important to note that the Israelites naturally understand the statements in their own Hebrew language much better than Christians who only have a translation. In the understanding of the Hebrews, the creation week (Genesis 1) always meant the beginning of the day from the dark phase, not from sunrise. This has not changed in Israel to this day. They do not say that in the creation time a day began with the sunrise (see also definition sabbath). 

Up to now there has been talk of the biblical division of days, but the nations of the earth had different definitions of days than the people of God. The Israelites started the calendar day after sunset at night, but the Romans initiated the day in the middle of darkness (that is, at midnight). A biblical (Israeli) day consists of only two parts, namely night and light-day. So the day of light is the second half of a whole calendar day and the sunrise in the morning is always the middle of a whole Israeli calendar day. But a Roman (or Catholic) day has parts of two nights with a light-day in between and the middle of a Roman calendar day is not at sunrise but at noon. The biblical day begins with darkness and ends with light. But a Roman day, which to this day corresponds to our Gregorian (Catholic) calendar, begins and ends in the middle of the darkness (midnight):

Although the writers of the New Testament (NT) were Christians, they were at the same time also Israelites, due to their family background and state descent. They therefore always used - just like their fathers - only the biblical division of the day. The seventh day of the week (the Sabbath) consequently began at sunset (beginning of the night, 6 p.m.) and ended after 24 hours when the sun set again (6 p.m.). But with the Romans the seventh day of the week began at midnight (24 o'clock or 0 o'clock) on Friday and ended at the next midnight (24 o'clock) on Saturday. After that, Sunday, the first day of the Roman (and Catholic) week, began at midnight:

When the Old and New Testament speak of "days", then only the biblical days were always meant and never the Roman days. Therefore, in the entire Bible (from Genesis to Revelation) there is not a single passage that refers to Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday etc. It is very important to keep this in mind when the Bible speaks of the day when Jesus rose from the dead (see Resurrection on Sabbath). In other words, since the disciples of Jesus were Israelites, in their New Testament reports on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus they never used the Roman, but always only the Hebrew division of the day; and their day always began and ended at sunset and not at midnight. That is why the names of today's days of the week (Friday, Saturday, Sunday...) were never mentioned in the basic Greek text of the entire Bible. They therefore do not belong in any Bible translation. The mention of these today's names of days of the week in the NT is consequently always wrong, even if it is meant well. Once again, the mentioning of our present weekday names in the NT is always wrong, because the biblical days begin at sunset, but the Roman days begin at midnight, and so follow different calendars. Anyone who uses today's names of the days in the New Testament falsifies the Word of God, for the writers meant only the biblical days.

At the time of Jesus, Romans and Jews divided the night into 4 night watches of 3 hours each. They called them "evening" (1st-3rd hour after sunset; today 18-21 o'clock), "midnight" (3rd-6th hour; thus until midnight, today 21-24 o'clock), "cock-crowing" (6th-9th hour; today 0-3 o'clock, Roman "gallicium", this night watch lasted until the time when the cock began to crow) and "morning" (9th-12th hour; today 3-6 o'clock, i.e. until sunrise in the morning). Although one night lasted 12 hours for Jews and Romans, the Jews began to count the hours and calendar days after sunset, but the Romans did not start counting until midnight. The Israeli twelfth hour of the night was for the Romans the sixth hour in the morning of a new calendar day:

Jesus also mentioned these four night watches when he said (Mk 13:35):

KJV: "Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even [οψε, opse, evening], or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning" 

ESV: "Therefore stay awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows,[c] or in the morning." [c] Footnote: That is, the third watch of the night, between midnight and 3 a.m.

In Mt 28:1 it is the same word "οψε" (opse, Stong No. 3796), as in Mk 11:19; 13:35, where it is translated as "evening" in all Bibles. What is important here is that the verses in Mk 11,19 and 13,35 are BEFORE the events in Mt 28:1, so the whole world has been shown how this 100% exactly the same word is to be understood in the later events in Mt 28:1. See also the grammatical variant "οψιος" (opsios; Strong No. 3798 with 15 occurrences; always translated with "evening", never with "end" or "after"). Mt 28:1 is not the only exception, but quite the contrary, the use of the same word in other biblical passages confirms the "evening" in Mt 28:1. In Mk 13,35 this word was even defined by our Lord Jesus himself, so why should we now be forbidden to understand this word in the way Jesus understood it?

It is important to clear up a misunderstanding that has already caused many Bible readers headaches, namely the definition of the word "evening" (Hebrew ereb or erev). Today we understand by an "evening" mainly the period of time at the end of the day and at the beginning of the night, that is, the time in the area of the setting of the sun. With the Romans, an evening ended at midnight because a new calendar day began after that. But with the Israelites, depending on the context, the evening could mean not only the end of the light-day (by this we mean the bright phase of a calendar day), but also the complete night, because the Israelite night always belonged to the same calendar day and was never divided into two calendar days. This is shown not only in Gen 1 and Mt 28:1, but also in the book of Ruth (cf. Ruth 3:8-13), which does not calculate the morning from midnight, but only from sunrise. In this context the statements of Daniel are also interesting, who also lets the days to come begin with the evenings: "And he said to me, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state”" (Dan 8:14).

The light-day and the night are clearly defined, but an evening is a very broad term, as both the light-day and the night include an evening. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the ereb (evening) of the light-day and the ereb (evening) of the calendar day (evening of the night). It is clear that the ereb (evening) of the night begins after sunset, but when did the evening (erev) begin in Old Testament times on a light-day? The Hebrew word "ereb" (Strong No. 6153; 134 times in the OT) has a Semitic root with a multiple and very broad meaning. It means "decline", i.e. the entire decline of the sun (the entire going down of the sun) from its highest point (12 noon) to complete darkness (6 p.m.). So it includes the entire second half of each light-day from 12 noon, thus also the early and late afternoon. In Israel the period from sunrise to noon was called "morning" and the second part of the day (from noon to sunset) was called "ereb" (evening). But ereb (evening) also meant the whole night, for at the time of the desert migration (Exodus) the Hebrews had no wristwatches on which they could have determined the midnight. So both the light-day and the night have an evening (decline):

Evening of the day: 12 to 18 o'clock (6th to 12th hour) for the Israelites and 15-18 o'clock for the Romans

Evening of the night: 18 to 6 o'clock (1st to 12th hour) for the Israelites and 18-24 o'clock with the Romans

Ereb does not mean the sunset itself (i.e. not exactly the moment when the sun leaves the horizon), because there are other Hebrew words for this. Today we use the words "morning", "noon", "afternoon" and "evening", but the Hebrew Bible speaks of "morning", "noon" and "ereb" (evening), although each calendar day also began with the evening. In Ps 55:17, for example, it says, "Evening [ereb] and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he [God] hears my voice."

The different geographical and temporal use of the word "evening" (ereb) among the peoples has fostered confusion of understanding and only the complete context can explain what a speaker means exactly.

Even the English language refers to noon. The term we associate with the morning, a.m., is an abbreviation the Latin phrase ante meridiem meaning “before midday.” And p.m. is an abbreviation of post meridiem, meaning “after midday” (source). However, the time after noon we call afternoon, but not the evening.

In 11 biblical passages (Ex 12:6; 16:12; 29:39,41; 30:8; Lev 23:5; Num 9:3,5,11; 28:4,8) the term "between the evenings" (between the ereb) appears, which in some Bible translations was also translated "between the two evenings" or mostly inaccurately simply as at twilight", "in the evening"or "at even" (KJV). In most English Bibles there was no literal translation, because it was not logical to speak of "two evenings". But the Hebrew original makes sense and the literal translation makes it possible to know the exact time of the slaughter of the lambs. Also in the Greek-speaking Septuagint this phrase was mostly translated as "in the evening" (προς εσπεραν = pros hespera; Ex 12:6; 16:12; Num 9:3,11; 28:4,8 - the word "hespera" appears also in the NT: Lk 24:29; Acts 4:3; 28:23, Strong No. 2073) or "at evening twilight" (δειλιάω=deiliaó; Ex 29:39,40) or also "between the evenings" (αναμέσον των εσπερινών = anameson ton hesperinon; Lev 23:5). 

The inaccuracy of some translators has caused problems of understanding and dispute among millions of Christians. They did not know whether the slaughter of the Passover lamb took place before or after sunset. Indeed, some thought that "between the evenings" could mean the short time between sunset and complete darkness. But this is not true, as will be demonstrated further down in the text. Several German Bibles are much more precise and actually speak of the exact time "between the two evenings".

The verse in Dt 16:6 was translated in the King James Bible as follows: "there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening [ereb] at sunset, ...". So here the short time after sunset could be meant. But in fact the Hebrew text does not speak of the time AFTER sunset, but of an event BEFORE sunset, namely during the setting of the sun (decline of the sun). 

The Passover lamb was to be slaughtered "between the evenings" (Ex 12:5-6) according to God's instruction. But when exactly was that? At the time of the desert migration (Exodus), when God gave this commandment, there was no talk of hours or times, because people could not determine the exact time in the desert. The word "hour" appears very late in the Bible, for the first time in the ninth book of the Bible (1Sam 9:24). It is not found at all in the books of Moses. Instead, people had to orient themselves in time to the visible position of the sun. As has already been described, a Hebrew light-day (the light part of the day) consists of two parts, namely the morning (sunrise to noon) and the ereb (the decline from noon to sunset). The solar peak (noon) is exactly the midpoint between these two visible phases of the sun's course. The Israelites divided the decline of the light-day into the early and late decline (ereb) and the time just between them they called "between the declines (ereb, evenings)". This corresponds exactly to the time from the ninth hour (i.e. from 3 p.m.). In other words: the evening (ereb, decline) of the Hebrew day begins at noon and the evening of the night begins at 6 p.m. and the time in between, that is to say at 3 p.m. (the 9th hour), the Israelites called this "between the evenings (declines)".

The daily sacrifice was also offered at the same time, as recorded in the book Numeri: "This is the food offering that you shall offer to the Lord: two male lambs a year old without blemish, day by day, as a regular offering. 4 The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight" (Num 28:3-4, ESV). But literally it does not say "at twillight" or "at even" (KJV), but: "between the evenings", that is, at the 9th hour, about 3 p.m: 

With "between the evenings" was consequently never meant the time after sunset, as many theologians wrongly claim, but the time between the two ereb (declines, evenings), namely the early and the late ereb (evening) on a light-day (=the second part of a Hebrew calendar day). This did not mean the period between two calendar days (i.e. not the period around 6 p.m.). If God had meant the short time from sunset to complete darkness, then he could have simply said "after sunset" or "during the change of a calendar day" and all people would know exactly what was meant. But God quite deliberately did not do exactly that, because God was never concerned with a night event, but with the death of the Lamb in the late afternoon of a day of light exactly at the 9th hour, that is, around 3 p.m. That was exactly the time when our Lord Jesus Christ died.

This is all logical, because there was

- a morning sacrifice at 9 am (exactly between sunrise and noon, i.e. between 6 am and 12 noon) and

- an evening sacrifice at 3 pm (exactly between noon and sunset, i.e. between 12 noon and 6 pm). 

In practice the exact determination of the middle "between the Erev" was not always easy, e.g. when clouds blocked the view and sundials could not be used. Therefore, in the everyday language of Israel, "between the evenings" generally meant the period from late afternoon until one hour before sunset. The slaughtering of the Passover lambs "between the evenings" lasted in Jerusalem from the 9th to the 11th hour (i.e. 3 to 5 p.m.). When the number of the people of Israel had increased considerably, the many thousands of sheep in Jerusalem could not all be slaughtered at exactly 3 p.m., so this period was extended to 5 p.m. However, after 5 p.m. there was still an hour left to prepare for the following High feast Sabbath (15th Nisan), which began after sunstet at 6 p.m. This is also confirmed by the Greco-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, who states the slaughtering of the lambs on the preparation day (14th Abib; the Jews today also use the name of the month Nisan) between 3-5 p.m. (see below).

The Hebrew "between the ereb" is a phrase we do not use today because we have clocks accurate to the second and do not have to pay attention to the position of the sun to determine the time. Instead we would say "at/after 3 p.m." or "in the late afternoon", but "afternoon" is a word that we do not find in the Bible, because that is what the astronomically based "ereb" was used for. 

In order to understand the Bible, we have to break away from our current day definitions and put ourselves in the time of the people of Israel at the time of Moses and at the time of Jesus, and we also have to look at the different use of some words in different cultures and peoples and their development over the centuries. This ereb definition was not used by the Romans and the Greeks. In the ancient Greek language, "evening" did not mean the entire setting (decline) of the sun, but only the period of time that began after 3 p.m. (or even later) (cf. Mk 15:41-42) and extended far into the night. This caused a translation problem, and pagans who did not know the calendar of God could not know what was meant by the expression "between the evenings", which was strange to them. 

The Israelites were to bring the daily sacrifice of incense "between the evenings", at the same time as they lit the lamps. "And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even [literally: between evenings], he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations" (Ex 30:8, KJV). This did not mean that the lamps were to be lit at exactly 3 p.m., but rather that this was to take place in the course of the afternoon, but before sunset, at the latest about one hour before. The Jews still light the lamps of the menorah about one hour before sunset, that is, before the Sabbath begins.

That "between the evenings" biblically means the time before sunset is by no means something new, for it is a fact that has already been explained in old Bible dictionaries. An example from the German SCHNEIDER's encyclopedia from 1731:

"The Easter lamb was not prepared at the beginning of the 14th day, but on the 14th day between evenings, which is in the afternoon of the 14th day, when the first part of the day has passed. For that actually means on the 14th day between evenings, when on the 14th day the sun is over the central pantheon of the sky, and is inclined towards sundown" (Allgemeines Biblisches Lexicon of Daniel Schneider and Johann Georg Pritius, Bd. 3, Publisher: Knoch, 1731, key word: Süssen Brods Tage).

What is meant by "between the evenings" caused controversy not only among Christians but also among the Jews themselves. A quotation from the year 1810:

"From ancient times, the opinions of the Jews about the destiny of this time were divided. The Karites and Samaritans explained it 1) as the time between sunset and nightfall... 2) the Pharisees, on the other hand, already at the time of Josephus [Flavius] (see Jewish war 6,9,3), which is now followed by the Rabbanites, explained it from the time when the sun is inclined to set until the actual setting and slaughter the Passover between the 9th and 11th hour" (German translation, original source: Wilhem Genesius: Hebräisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch über die Schriften des Alten Testaments, Leipzig 1810, S. 891).

The historian Flavius Josephus, who lived at the same time as Jesus, writes that in all Israel the slaughter took place exactly at the time determined by God, namely from the 9th hour, that is, from 3 p.m:

"Now that the so-called Passover feast was at the door, where from the 9th to the 11th hour sacrifices are offered..." (Jewish War, Book 6, Chapter 9, Section 3).

There is another definition known since centuries what can be meant by "between the two evenings". In this it is not about the decline of the sun from noon (12 o'clock), but it is about the decline (evening) from 3 o'clock and the following decline (evening) from 6 o'clock. But in the content there are no differences, because it is about the same time frame between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. also here. Quote: "According to some, the Jews called the time when the sun inclines to its setting, or the time from 3 o'clock on, the first evening; but the time when the sun really sets, or the time from 6 o'clock on, they called the second evening" (Johann Georg Riegler: "Die Eucharistie nach Schrift und Tradition: historisch-kritisch-exegetisch, dogmatisch, symbolisch, polemisch-apologetisch, praktisch bearbeitet: den katholischen u. protestantischen Theologen gewidmet", Bamberg 1845).

However, in almost all definitions the decisive third hour (3 p.m.) marks the beginning of this time indication "between the evenings".

The Passover lamb was to be slaughtered in the Old and New Testament from the 9th hour (that is to say at about 3 p.m.). And when did our Lord Jesus Christ die? The Bible gives the clear answer: it was exactly at the 9th hour (cf. Mk 15:33-34; Lk 23:44-46), that is, around 3 p.m. Thus Jesus fulfilled the Passover Lamb sacrifice not only on the exact day but also to the minute in a perfect way, namely on the 14th Abib (Nisan) at the 9th hour (the 9 is the number of Satan), it cannot be more exact.  Jesus paid the death penalty for us and saved us from eternal death, Satan's power was thereby taken away for all eternity and no one can separate us from Jesus Christ any more. Satan can kill, but can never take eternal life from us, he has lost and he knows that, that's why Satan is so angry. We are the winners because we have Jesus.

Jesus, our Passover lamb, died "between the evenings", exactly on the same day and at the same time when the Passover lamb was slaughtered in Egypt, whose blood saved the people of Israel from death and made them go out of the land of sin, from the power of death, into deliverance. They entered into a new life under the protection of God in a new and better land. 

 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil"

(1Thess 5:21-22)

"Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them"

(Epheser 5:11)