er, . . . slay their
sacrifices, from the ninth hour till the eleventh."[279:1] And the
Talmud made the first evening to begin with the visible decline of the
sun and the second with sunset, or "the two evenings" to last from three
till about six. Schiaparelli gives the first evening from sunset until
the time that the newly visible lunar crescent could be seen in the
twilight sky, or about half an hour after sunset, and the second evening
from that until darkness set in, basing his argument on the directions
to Aaron to light the lamps "between the two evenings," since, he
argues, these would not be made to burn in the daylight. Probably in the
days of Moses and Aaron the period could not be defined as accurately as
this would imply, as the opportunity of seeing the new moon could only
come once a month, and we have no evidence of any mechanical
time-measurer being then in use with them.

For shorter spaces of time we have the word "moment" or "instant" many
times mentioned. The words may mean, the opening or winking of the eye,
"the twinkling of an eye," spoken of by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the
Corinthians, and do not describe any actual duration of time, or
division of the day.

The only time-measurer mentioned in the Bible is the dial of Ahaz, which
will form the subject of a later chapter. It need only be noted here
that, as it depended upon the fall of the shadow, it was of use only
whilst the sun was shining; not during cloudy weather, or at night.

As the day had three main divisions, so had also the night. There were
three "watches," each, like the watches on ship-board, about four hours
in length. So in the Psalms, "the watches" are twice put as an
equivalent for the night.

The ancient Hebrews would have no difficulty in roughly dividing the
night into three equal parts, whenever the stars could be seen. Whether
they watched "Arcturus and his sons,"--the circumpolar constellations
moving round like a vast dial in the north--or the bringing forth of
Mazzaroth, the zodiacal constellations, in the south, they would soon
learn to interpret the signs of night with sufficient accuracy for their
purpose.

The first watch of night is mentioned in the book of Lamentations.

"Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches
pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord."

It was "in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly
set the watch," that Gideon and