According to the Old Testament – -and even some, present-day eastern cultures- – there are five hours of prayer. These hours of prayer are reckoned or numbered in a leap-frog correspondence to the daytime hours between 6am and 6pm…
These “hours of prayer” approximate our times of: 6am, 9am, 12pm (noon), 3pm, and 6pm.
The eastern, 24-hour day started at 6pm …instead of like our western 12am (midnight). Our first “half-day” (12 hours of 24) ends at 12pm (noon). Their first “half-day” (12 hours) ends at 6am (in the morning). Thus, their “second” half-day begins at the first hour of the daylight time, 6am, running the course of time from sunrise to sunset, ending their full 24-hour day at 6pm …where our 24-hour day runs from midnight to the next midnight.
Hence, our daylight time is approximately the same as theirs, but their day-reckoning time did not start from the same point as our first 12-hour period (12pm to 12am). The Israelite, daylight, time-reckoning began and ran from 6am to 6pm, or from sunrise to sunset.
The hour of prayer refers to a full, one-hour period of time. The counting is not a continuous or consecutive five hours but is a numbering system of the full one-hours of prayer that occur throughout the daylight, twelve-hour day…
To understand the Biblical five “hours of prayer,” then start the counting from the first hour of their daylight hour, 6am to 7am, giving you their “first hour” of prayer. There are no hours of prayer between 7am and 9am, but the time is counted (in a leap-frog fashion) between the hours of prayer to give you the next… hour of prayer.
Therefore, 6-7am (one hour) plus 7-8am is now two hours into the day; plus, 8-9am is three hours, etc. Thus, 9am is the Eastern, “second” hour of prayer. Simply follow the numbering or reckoning through until 6pm in the evening, and you have: the first hour of prayer at 6am; the second hour of prayer at 9am; the third hour of prayer at 12pm (noon); the fourth hour of prayer at 3pm; and, the fifth hour of prayer at 6pm.
Real simple.
Here it is again:
- First hour of prayer, 6am …being the day’s “first hour”
- Second hour of prayer, 9am …being the day’s “third hour”
- Third hour of prayer, 12 noon …being the day’s “sixth hour”
- Fourth hour of prayer, 3pm …being the day’s “ninth hour”
Fifth hour of prayer, 6pm …being the day’s “twelfth hour”
Thus, the Jewish time counting is from sunrise to sunset, and the counting for the “hours of prayer” are during the daylight hours of the day from 6am to 6pm …giving us an understanding of how to count the hours of the day, as well as how to count those hours for reckoning the five hours of prayer.
