Acts 3:1-11 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.… The ninth hour was 3 p.m., the hour of the evening sacrifice (Jos. Ant. 14:04, § 3). The traditions of later Judaism had fixed the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours of each day as times for private prayer. Daniel's practice of praying three times a day seems to imply a rule of the same kind, and Psalm 55:17 ("Evening and morning and at noon will I pray") carries the practice up to the time of David. "Seven times a day" was, perhaps, the rule of those who aimed at a life of higher devotion (Psalm 119:164). Both practices passed into the usage of the Christian Church certainly as early as the second century, and probably therefore in the first. The three hours were observed by many at Alexandria in the time of Clement (Strom. 7. p. 722). The seven became the "canonical hours" of Western Christendom, the term first appearing in the rule of St. Benedict (ob. A.D. 542) and being used by ( A.D. 701). (Dean Plumptre.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.WEB: Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. |
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