Time [nave]
TIMEBegiing of, Gen. 1:1, 14.
Epochs of: Before the flood, Josh. 24:2.
The exodus, Ex. 19:1; 40:17; 1 Kin. 6:1.
Daniel's reckoning of time, and times, and half times, Dan. 7:25; 12:7.
Indicated by a sundial, 2 Kin. 20:9-11; Isa. 38:8.
Division of, into watches, Ex. 14:24; 1 Sam. 11:11; Matt. 14:25; Mark 6:48.
One day as a thousand years, 2 Pet. 3:8.
Fullness of, Gal. 4:4; Eph. 1:10.
End of, Job 26:10; Rev. 10:6.
See: Hours.
TIME [isbe]
TIME - tim: The basis of the Hebrew measurement of time was the day and the lunar month, as with the Semites generally. The division of the day into hours was late, probably not common until after the exile, although the sun-dial of Ahaz (2 Ki 20:9; Isa 38:8) would scent to indicate some division of the day into periods of some sort, as we know the night was divided, The word used for "hour" is Aramaic she`a' (sha`ta'), and does not occur in the Old Testament until the Book of Daniel (4:33; 5:5), and even there it stands for an indefinite period for which "time" would answer as well.1. The Day:
The term "day" (yom) was in use from the earliest times, as is indicated in the story of the Creation (Gen 1). It there doubtless denotes an indefinite period, but is marked off by "evening and morning" in accordance with what we know was the method of reckoning the day of 24 hours, i.e. from sunset to sunset.
2. Night:
The night was divided, during pre-exilic times, into three divisions called watches ('ashmurah, 'ashmoreth), making periods of varying length, as the night was longer or shorter (Jdg 7:19). This division is referred to in various passages of the Old Testament, but nowhere with indication of definite limits (see Ps 90:4; 119:148; Jer 51:12; Hab 2:1).
In the New Testament we find the Roman division of, etc.). But the use of the word in the indefinite sense, as in the expressions: "day of the Lord," "in that day," "the day of judgment," etc., is far more frequent (see DAY). Other more or less indefinite periods of the day and night are: dawn, dawning of the day, morning, evening, noonday, midnight, cock-crowing or crowing of the cock, break of day, etc.
3. Week:
The weekly division of time, or the seven-day period, was in use very early and must have been known to the Hebrews before the Mosaic Law, since it was in use in Babylonia before the days of Abraham and is indicated In the story of the Creation. The Hebrew shabhua`, used in the Old Testament for "week," is derived from shebha`, the word for "seven." As the seventh day was a day of rest, or Sabbath (Hebrew shabbath), this word came to be used for "week," as appears in the New Testament sabbaton, sabbata), indicating the period from Sabbath to Sabbath (Mt 28:1). The same usage is implied in the Old Testament (Lev 23:15; 25:8). The days of the week were indicated by the numerals, first, second, etc., save the seventh, which was the Sabbath. In New Testament times Friday was called the day of preparation (paraskeue) for the Sabbath (Lk 23:54).
4. Month:
The monthly division of time was determined, of course, by the phases of the moon, the appearance of the new moon being the beginning of the month, chodhesh. Another term for month was yerach yerach, meaning "moon," which was older and derived from the Phoenician usage, but which persisted to late times, since it is found in the Aramaic inscriptions of the 3rd century AD in Syria. The names of the months were Babylonian and of late origin among the Hebrews, probably coming into use during and after the Captivity. But they had other names, of earlier use, derived from the Phoenicians, four of which have survived in "Abib," "Ziv," "Ethanim" and "Bul."
See CALENDAR.
5. Year:
The Hebrew year (shanah) was composed of 12 or 13 months, the latter being the year when an intercalary month was added to make the lunar correspond with the solar year. As the difference between the two was from ten to eleven days, this required the addition of a month once in about three years, or seven in nineteen years. This month was added at the vernal equinox and was called after the month next preceding, we-'adhar, or the "second Adar." We do not know when this arrangement was first adopted, but it was current after the Captivity. There were two years in use, the civil and the ritual, or sacred year. The former began in the autumn, as would appear from Ex 23:16; 34:22, where it is stated that the "feast of ingathering" should be at the end of the year, and the Sabbatic year began in the 7th month of the calendar or sacred year, which would correspond to September-October (Lev 25:9). Josephus says (Ant., I, iii, 3) that Moses designated Nican (March-April) as the 1st month of the festivals, i.e. of the sacred year, but preserved the original order of the months for ordinary affairs, evidently referring to the civil year. This usage corresponds to that of the Turkish empire, where the sacred year is lunar and begins at different seasons, but the financial and political year begins in March O.S. The beginning of the year was called ro'sh ha-shanah, and was determined by the priests, as was the beginning of the month. Originally this was done by observation of the moon, but, later, calculation was employed in connection with it, until finally a system based on accurate calculation was adopted, which was not until the 4th century AD. New-Year was regarded as a festival.
See ASTRONOMY, sec. I, 5; YEAR.
6. Seasons:
The return of the seasons was designated by summer and winter, or seed-time and harvest; for they were practically the same. There is, in Palestine, a wet season, extending from October to March or April, and a dry season comprising the remainder of the year. The first is the winter (choreph), and this is the seed-time (zera`), especially the first part of it called yoreh, or the time of the early rain; the second is the summer (qayits, "fruit-harvest," or qatsir, "harvest").
Seed-time begins as soon as the early rains have fallen in sufficient quantity to moisten the earth for plowing, and the harvest begins in some parts, as in the lower Jordan region, near the Dead Sea, about April, but on the high lands a month or two later. The fruit harvest comes in summer proper and continues until the rainy season. "The time when kings go out to war" (2 Sam 11:1; 1 Ki 20:22) probably refers to the end of the rainy season in Nican.
7. No Era:
We have no mention in the Old Testament of any era for time reckoning, and we do not find any such usage until the time of the Maccabees. There are occasional references to certain events which might have served for eras had they been generally adopted. Such was the Exodus in the account of the building of the temple (1 Ki 6:1) and the Captivity (Ezek 33:21; 40:1) and the Earthquake (Am 1:1). Dates were usually fixed by the regnal years of the kings, and of the Persian kings after the Captivity. When Simon the Maccabee became independent of the Seleucid kings in 143-142 or 139-138 BC, he seems to have established an era of his own, if we may attribute to him a series of coins dated by the years "of the independence of Israel" (see COINS: MONEY; also 1 Macc 13:41 and 15:6,10). The Jews doubtless were familiar with the Seleucid era, which began in 312 BC, and with some of the local eras of the Phoenician cities, but we have no evidence that they made use of them. The era of the Creation was not adopted by them until after the time of Christ. This was fixed at 3,830 years before the destruction of the later temple, or 3760 BC.
See ERA.
H. Porter
Time [baker]
[N] [T]It is debatable whether the Bible contains enough information to formulate a full-scale doctrine of time; nonetheless, the significance of the biblical concept of time is unmistakably the way it uniformly presents God at work in guiding the course of history according to his saving plan. The Hebrew et [te[], moed, iddan [v'd'[], zeman ['mz], yom [/y] and Greek kairos [kairov"], chronos [crovno"], aion [aijwvn] are the main biblical time words depicting this divine work.
God as Lord over Time. Time is not fatalistic or capricious, but, according to Scripture, under God's personal direction and control. Time began at creation and becomes the agency through which God continues to unveil his divine purpose for it.
God is transcendent over time. He established the cycle of days and seasons by which time is known and reckoned (Gen 1:14) and possesses the power to dissolve them according to his eternal purposes (Isa 60:19-20); moreover, he controls world history, determining in advance the times set for all nations and bringing them to pass (Dan 2:21; Acts 17:26). But God is not limited by time (Psalm 90:4). It in no sense diminishes his person or work: the eternal God does not grow tired or weary (Isa 40:28) and his purposes prevail (Prov 16:4; Isa 46:10).
Furthermore, God imminently expresses concern for his creation. He reveals himself in history according to the times and dates set by his own authority (Acts 1:7) and will bring about in his own time the consummation of world history in Jesus' return (Eph 1:9-10; 1 Tim 6:15).
God as "the First and Last" (Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12), "the Beginning and End" (Rev 21:6), "the one who is, was, and is to come" (Rev 1:4,8), "King of the Ages" (1 Tim 1:17; Rev 15:3) further points out his lordship over time.
The New Testament presents Jesus as Lord over time. With the Father, he existed prior to the beginning of time, created all things, and sustains all things (John 1:1-3; Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:2-3). He is neither limited by time, nor adversely affected by it: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb 13:8). He too is properly called "the Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and End" (Rev 22:13).
Humanity as Subject to Time. In contrast to God and Jesus, humanity is limited by time in the cycle of birth, life, and death. Every person bears the marks of time in the aging process and ultimately dies (Job 14:5; Heb 9:27). The span of life is brief and passing (Psalm 144:4; James 4:14). Even our time on earth—the events/circumstances and length of life—are in God's hands (Psalm 31:15; 139:16).
All people, moreover, will experience the passage of time in life after death. Because of sin, all people face spiritual death, which involves eternal separation from God (Rom 5:17-21; 6:23). Jesus' death and resurrection brings deliverance from sin and spiritual death, granting eternal life to all who believe (John 3:14-17, 36; 1 John 5:10-13).
Time as Redemptive History. Throughout history God has been carrying out his plan for redeeming a fallen world. The course of time, in effect, appears as redemptive history.
It is true that biblical writers perceive history as cyclical, in that various predictable, recurring sequence of events are inherent to it: the ordliness and seasonal regularity of nature (Psalm 19:1-6; 104:19; Eccl 1:4-7), the cycle of life (Eccl 3:1-15) and its wearisomeness (Eccl 1:8-11), the rise and fall of kings and empires (Dan 2:21), and the universal inclination toward evil (Judges 2:6-23; 2 Chron 36:15-16; Neh 9:5-37; Rom 1:18-32).
But they do not perceive history as static. Chronological time is of greatest importance in both Testaments as a way of tracing God's redemptive interventions in history. The most outstanding Old Testament example of this is Israel's redemption from Egypt (Neh 9:9-25; Psalm 78:12-55; Hosea 11:1); in the New Testament it is the coming of Jesus as Messiah, Savior, and Lord (Acts 3:12-26; 10:34-43; 13:16-41). The revelatory nature of these divine in-breakings dispels any notion that time is merely cyclical, without purpose and value.
Time is meaningfully forward-moving. The covenants God made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jeremiah illustrate that history reveals a progressive unveiling of God's redemptive plan for humanity. Prophetic fulfillment, according to God's appointed times, does so as well. The incarnation supremely exemplifies this: "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons" (Gal 4:4-5; cf. Mark 1:15; Rom 16:25-26; Eph 1:10; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 Peter 1:10-12). Jesus' death was not accidental, but a once for all atoning sacrifice (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27; 9:26; 1 Peter 3:18), occurring exactly when God had intended (Rom 5:6). In the same way, Jesus' second coming, the goal and end-point of redemptive history, will come to pass at God's appointed time (Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7; 3:21; 1 Tim 6:14-15).
The Present as the Time of Salvation. The Bible unanimously declares that now is the time of salvation. In the Old Testament, on the basis of Israel's redemption from Egypt, every succeeding generation was to respond in loving obedience to the laws issued at Sinai by God their Savior (Deut 11; Psalm 95:7-8). The injunction "it is time to seek the Lord" (Hosea 10:12) was to be Israel's perpetual desire.
In the New Testament, Jesus' coming as the Messiah inaugurated "the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:19,21). The time interval between the incarnation and the second coming appears symbolically as a jubilee year (Luke 4:19/Isa 61:1-2; cf. Lev 25:10), a time when salvation has been made available to all people through God's saving work in Jesus. Thus, "now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor 6:2); now is the appointed season to declare this divine mystery hidden from ages past (Col 1:26; Titus 1:3).
The present time holds a sense of urgency for unbelievers and believers. God now commands all people to repent for he has set a time when he will judge the world through Jesus (Acts 17:30-31). The time for repentance, however, is growing shorter (Rev 2:21; 10:6). Believers are encouraged to make the most of every opportunity in serving God (Eph 5:16; Col 4:5) and to mature in faith "as long as it is called Today" to ward off encroaching apostasy (Heb 3:13).
The End-Times. The end-time period surrounding Jesus' second coming is variously called the last times, last hour, last days, day of the Lord, day of judgment, day of Gods wrath, time of punishment, end of the ages, end of all things. The temporal finality of these expressions highlights the firm New Testament belief that the present course of history will come to an end when Jesus returns. The certainty of the first advent guarantees the certainty of the second (Acts 1:7).
The start of the end-times takes two forms in the New Testament. On the one hand, the messianic age, inaugurated with Christ's first coming, appears as the beginning of the last days according to Peter's use of Joel 2:28 in explaining the charismatic phenomena accompanying the Spirit's outpouring at Pentecost (Acts 2:17). Here the messianic age is equivalent to the end-times. It is a time of great salvation as well as of mounting evil growing to unprecedented proportions as the parousia nears. For this reason, the many antichrists, false teachers, and forms of ungodliness that have already appeared show without contradiction that it is the last hour (1 Tim 4:1; 2 Tim 3:1; 1 John 2:18).
On the other hand, although the end is near (Heb 10:37; James 5:8; Rev 22:7, 10), it has not yet arrived. Nor has the tumultuous period leading up to it. Because of the unique character of the end-times, it also has an identity not entirely the same as the messianic age. Its events include the fulfillment of the signs portending the end, Christ's return, the setting up of his eternal kingdom, and the last judgment. But even here the time periods partially overlap: the benefits derived from salvation in Christ promised to believers in the coming age (eternal life, perfect Christ-likeness, etc.), are, nonetheless, the property of believers to enjoy in part in this age.
Time and Eternity. The Bible does not specify if or in what sense time existed before creation or will exist after Jesus' return. Nor does it specify the relation between time and eternity either as unending time or timelessness.
But how God and humanity relate to time may parallel how time differs from eternity. On the one hand, God is eternal, having no beginning or end (Psalm 102:25-27; Isa 40:28; Rom 1:20); he is Lord over time. He is timeless in the sense that as Creator and Lord he is non- or supratemporal, standing outside of or above time (Psalm 90:2,4). Time is real for God. It becomes the means through which he makes known his enduring love to humankind. On the other, time and humanity are immortal in the sense that both have a starting point and continue on indefinitely. God promises unending life with him to those who believe in Jesus' redeeming work (John 3:16; 1 John 5:13) and unending separation from him to those who spurn it (Matt 25:46; 2 Thess 1:6-8).
H. Douglas Buckwalter
See also Day; Fullness of Time; Last Day(s), Latter Days, Last Times
Bibliography. J. Barr, Biblical Words for Time; O. Cullmann, Christ and Time; G. Delling, TDNT, 3:455-64; 9:581-93; J. Guhrt and H. -C. Hahn, NIDNTT, 3:826-50; C. F. H. Henry, EDT, pp. 1094-96; E. Jenni, IDB, 4:642-49; C. H. Pinnock, ISBE, 4:852-53; H. Sasse, TDNT, 1:197-209.
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[N] indicates this entry was also found in Nave's Topical Bible
[T] indicates this entry was also found in Torrey's Topical Textbook
TIME [bridgeway]
Life in the present world is inseparably bound up with time. Time is part of God’s created order (Gen 1:14; Heb 1:2). By contrast God, being the eternal one and the creator of all things, is not limited in any way by time. This means that his view of time is different from that of human beings (Isa 57:15; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:16; 2 Peter 3:8; see ETERNITY).Nevertheless, God is able to use time to bring his purposes to fulfilment (Gal 4:4), and he gives it to the people of his creation to use also (Eccles 5:18; 8:15). Men and women are therefore responsible to God for the way they use their time (1 Peter 1:15-17). (Concerning systems for reckoning time see DAY; MONTH.)
As a wise, powerful and loving Creator, God sees that everything happens at the right time to maintain the world for the benefit of his creatures (Deut 11:14; 2 Kings 4:16; Eccles 3:11; Acts 14:17). He controls history, often announcing in advance the precise time for his actions (Exod 9:18; Isa 37:33-38; Acts 17:26). (Concerning the time element in the writings of the prophets see PROPHECY.) Jesus’ birth, ministry, death and resurrection all took place at the time God had appointed (Gal 4:4; Mark 1:15; John 8:20; 12:23,27; 17:1). Christ’s return will also occur when God’s time has come (Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7; Rev 14:15; see DAY OF THE LORD).
Because history is moving constantly towards its climax, Christians must use their time wisely (Ps 90:12; Col 4:5). They should see time not merely as a period measured by a clock or a calendar, but as an opportunity given them to use. This does not mean that they have to create unnecessary pressure by squeezing as much as they can into their time, but that they should live and behave as befits God’s people (Eph 5:15-17; 1 Peter 4:1-3). The prospect of Christ’s return is an incentive not to hectic activity but to more Christlike conduct (Rom 13:11-14; 1 John 2:18,28).
God wants people to use their time in worthwhile work, but his gift of the Sabbath shows that he also wants them to have time for rest (Exod 23:12; cf. Gen 2:2-3). People should not waste their time through laziness or worthless activities (Prov 10:4-5; 12:11; 18:9; 2 Thess 3:11-12; 1 Tim 5:13), but neither should they spend their time in constant activity that leaves no time for proper relaxation (Neh 13:15-21; Eccles 2:21-23; Amos 8:5; cf. Mark 6:30-31; Luke 10:40-42; see WORK).
In their concern for time, people should not try to calculate when present life will end. Rather they should use the opportunity of the present life to accept God’s salvation and grow in Christian character (Acts 1:6-8; 2 Cor 6:1-2; Heb 3:13; 4:7; 5:12-14; 10:25; cf. Luke 12:16-20; James 4:13-16).
