Hour

The concept of the hour as a subdivided unit of time appears first in the biblical narrative in Daniel 3:6 and 4:19, reflecting the Babylonian division of the day into twelve equal parts. The Hebrew šāʿâ and Chaldee šāʿâh originally conveyed a brief moment or glance of time rather than a precise sixty-minute unit, and the Babylonian twelfth-part system was not part of original Hebrew timekeeping. Before the exile, Israelites reckoned time by watches of the night and by the position of the sun during the day.

In the New Testament the Greek hōra functions both as the twelfth-part of day or night and as a theologically weighted term for a decisive appointed moment. John's Gospel in particular employs the hour as a recurring motif for the appointed time of Jesus's glorification through death and resurrection: the hour has not yet come (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20) gives way to the hour has come (John 12:23; 13:1; 17:1), marking the theological turning point of the Gospel. Paul uses the same term eschatologically: knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep (Romans 13:11).