In our society, each new
day begins at midnight. In the ancient Middle
East, the new day began when the sun went down. We still see remnants
of that practice by celebrating Christmas Eve,
the night before Christmas Day. The night and the
day were divided into 12 equal
segments called hours. Though the actual
time varied depending on the time of the
year, sunrise would be somewhere around 6:00 AM. Three hours after sunrise was
the third hour, about 9:00 AM. The ninth hour would
be around 3:00 PM. The night was divided into
four sections called watches. The name "watches" comes
from the three-hour blocks during the night that soldiers
stood on guard or on watch. The watches started
at sunset and ended at 9:00, midnight,
3:00, and 6:00.