My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
What hour did Jesus die?
Mark and John seem to give two different hours for the death of Jesus.
“And it was the third hour when they crucified him.” (Mark 15:25)
“Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. Pilot said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’” (John 19:14)
The Jews broke up the twelve-hour night into four watches from sunset to sunrise each lasting about three hours. We see this idea possibly in Mark 13:35-36, “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, or in the morning – lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.” Likewise, during the daytime, the twelve hours (“Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9)) were broken into four periods. When stating times in the Gospels, we see that they generalized those times to these three-hour periods of the day and spoke of the “third”, “sixth”, and “ninth” hours (Matt. 20:3, 5; 27:45, 46; Mark 15:33, 34; Luke 23:44; Acts 2:15; 3:1; 10:3,9, 30; 23:23). Mark says Jesus’ crucifixion occurred in the third hour. John says, it was “about the sixth hour” which could mean it was coming up or approaching on the sixth hour, meaning Jesus’ crucifixion probably occurred near the end of the third hour quarter of day, so during the transition from the third hour quarter and the sixth hour quarter. Each of these accounts rounding off to on or the other quarter of the day and are consistent with how one spoke of time. These statements also help us to narrow down when Jesus died to the latter part of the third hour.
In the previous article we tackle whether or not John agrees with the synoptic Gospels on the day of Jesus’ death: The day of Jesus’ death
