Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 4:6
The sixth hour. Which clock John is using is an old and unresolved question.
John 4:6, in every translation this tool compares.
Half six. In Britain that is six thirty. In parts of Europe the same phrase means half past five. Nothing in the words tells you which convention is in force.
Because John gives times of day several times and the hour count may be Jewish, from sunrise, or Roman civil, from midnight, which moves every one of those scenes by six hours.
Versions print the sixth hour or convert it to about noon. Conversions assume the Jewish reckoning.
ὥρα ἕκτη hora hekte
Jewish reckoning counts from sunrise, making the sixth hour about noon. Roman civil reckoning counts from midnight, making it about six in the morning. John 19:14 is the verse that makes the question urgent, because it conflicts with Mark 15:25 on one reckoning and not the other.
English versions that convert to noon have made the decision invisible; those that print the sixth hour leave it visible and unexplained.
When a version converts an ancient measurement into a modern one, a convention has been assumed. Look for whether the text ever tells you which.
Most modern versions print about noon, quietly assuming Jewish reckoning.
- John 1:39; 4:6; 4:52; 19:14
- Mark 15:25 against John 19:14 is the crux
- Both reckonings are attested in the first century
