Like today descriptions of events or incidents during the Bible times included the time of day or evening -- although not always mentioning the actual hour.
The actual expression used varied depending on whether they were talking about something happening during the daytime or night. People in Israel would often used such expressions such as the "sixth hour but also described things as happening in the "morning', at "noon", or "midday", and in the "evening" if they were talking about something between sunrise and sunset.
They did not do this during the night however. Hebrews initially divided the night into periods of four watches of about 4 hours each, and later using the Roman and Greek practice of dividing the night into four watches of 3 hours.
These "watches" ran between sunset and sunrise. The first "watch" ran from sunset to 9:00 p.m., the second between 9:00 p.m. and midnight, the third ended three hours later at 3:00 a.m. with the "cockcrowing" and the fourth ran from that time to sunrise or "early in the morning." It was during this fourth watch that Jesus walked on the Sea of the Sea of Galilee.
The actual passing of time was kept track of by two devices. The first was the sun dial during daylight hours when the sun or the clepsydra or water clock during overcast days or during the night. These were clay vessels with sloped sides and a small hole in the bottom that allowed measured drops of water to flow from one bowl to another one stacked underneath. Both of these could be marked with degrees of measusre according to the Jewish Encycyclopedia
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