The 24-hour Hebrew day started at sundown which is roughly 6:00 PM to us, but the hours of the daytime were counted from sunup, which is about 6:00 AM to us. Their 6th hour of the daytime is what we call high noon.

John 19:14

YLT ¹⁴ and it was the preparation of the passover, and as it were the sixth hour, and he saith to the Jews, `Lo, your king!’

(either preparation of the passover started at the 6th hour or Jesus was still before Pilate at the 6th hour)

The day that Jesus was on trial before Pilate was the preparation day for the passover. But the Jews couldn’t legally start slaughtering lambs until the 6th hour of daylight. Jesus had been arrested sometime in the middle of the night. Early in the morning He was taken to Pilate. As the Roman appointed arbitrator of the Jews, Pilate needed to get his court duties done before the passover sacrifices governed the day. The preparation for Passover was to start at the 6th hour. What Pilate doesn’t know is that the land will go dark this year for the first half of the lamb killing time. Jesus wasn’t before Pilate at the 6th hour.

The other gospel accounts make it clear that Jesus was crucified (nailed to the cross) about the 3rd hour of daytime and died about the 9th hour of daytime. He was clearly on the cross at the 6th hour. But John seems to say it is already the 6th hour and Jesus is still in trial court. John knows that when the Sun reaches it’s highest point in the sky (6th hour) the slaughtering of the passover lambs commences. After the after-noon sacrifices, the Jews will begin preparing the lambs for the night-time eating. The lamb was to be killed and prepared during daylight hours because the great sabbath started at dusk. No work was to be done on the sabbaths. So Pilate, as the Roman procurator of the Jews in Judea, should make sure to get the court proceedings over with early, before the Jews’ 6th hour when the preparation for the passover meal begins en masse.

John 19:14 tells us that Jesus’ trial was on the same day they prepared the passover meal. John also tells us that the preparation was slated to start at the 6th hour that day. Pilate repeatedly goes in and out of the praetorian as Rome’s designated mediator between the accused and the accusers. He wants to hurry up these court proceedings so as not to interfere with the wholesale preparation for the Passover feast. Pilate speaks more like Jesus’ defense lawyer than His prosecutor or judge. The mob acted like a rigged jury that wouldn’t see it any way but guilty, despite the lack of evidence.

Ironically, the Jews would not enter the praetorian with Pilate, for fear of being rendered unclean for the passover. They could personally overlook their own criminal behavior as long as they remained outside the ‘unclean’ Gentile courthouse. The Jewish administration no longer ministered in the halls of justice under Roman rule, yet their extrinsic and unrighteous voice still prevailed over Pilate’s right-mindedness. An elite council of priests and elders had just had Jesus arrested while He was vocalizing His own grievance to His Father in the garden.

The Jewish administrators came at night carrying lamps, torches, clubs and swords as they led Roman authorities into the garden, where Jesus was being asked by His Father to take on their death; the death of both Adam and Israel. It was Jesus’ archetypical belief in His Father’s justice that would save them. They however denounced Jesus’ faith as blasphemous. Only Jesus took to heart their full Hebrew faith as given to them by His Father. He and His Father were one. They came to agree on everything, even Jesus’ death to rescue His people. Jesus prayed that the Jews and their converts who later believed in Him through them would also become one.

Ezekiel 11:19-20

LITV ¹⁹ And I shall give to them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the stony heart out of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh, ²⁰ so that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments, and do them. And they shall be to Me for a people, and I will be to them for God.

It was a full moonlit night, but the moonlight wasn’t sufficient to have Jesus arrested by, so they carried torches into the garden. And not coincidentally, just as the Sun finally reached it’s zenith on that 14th day of the month, darkness covered the Jewish land for the next 3 hours. There would be no more sunlight or moonlight while Jesus sacrificially took the fall for Adam and Israel. There would be no full light of day (high noon) to slaughter the lambs by that year. Light didn’t return until after Jesus died as the true Lamb of God.

The 6th hour of daylight on Nisan 14th was the earliest that the lambs could’ve been slain, for cooking the passover meal in preparation for the annual passing over commemoration. But this year the the Sun went dark for the brightest half of their legal prep time. The actual passing over of the firstborn in Egypt occurred in the middle of the next day’s moonlit night, in the middle of the month, on the 15th of the month of Nisan.

Mark 15:25 – 3rd hour of daylight (9AM)

YLT ²⁵ and it was the third hour, and they crucified him;

Luke 23:44 – 6th hour of daylight (12 PM)

YLT ⁴⁴ And it was, as it were, the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the land till the ninth hour,

Matthew 27:46-50 – 9th hour of daylight (3PM)

YLT ⁴⁶ and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a great voice, saying, `Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, `My God, my God, why didst Thou forsake me?’ ⁴⁷ And certain of those standing there having heard, said—`Elijah he doth call;’ ⁴⁸ and immediately, one of them having run, and having taken a sponge, having filled it with vinegar, and having put it on a reed, was giving him to drink, ⁴⁹ but the rest said, `Let alone, let us see if Elijah doth come—about to save him.’ ⁵⁰ And Jesus having again cried with a great voice, yielded the spirit;

John 19 – 6th hour to 9th hour was dark that year

⁴ Pilate, … in him I find no fault;’ … 5 Look at, the man [human or humanity]!’ ⁶ When, therefore, the chief priests and the officers did see him, they called out, saying, `Crucify, crucify;’ Pilate said to them, `You take him and you crucify; for I find no fault in him;’ ⁷ the Jews answered him, `We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die, for he made himself Son of God.’ ⁸ When, therefore, Pilate heard this word, he was the more afraid, 11 Yah Shua answers, … `because of this, he who is delivering me up to you has greater sin.’ ¹² From this time was Pilate seeking to release him, and the Jews were crying out, saying, `If you release this one, you art not a friend of Caesar; every one making himself a king, speaks against Caesar.’ ¹³ Pilate, therefore, having heard this word, brought Jesus out—and he sat down upon the tribunal—to a place called, `Pavement,’ and in Hebrew, Gabbatha; ¹⁴ and it was the preparation of the passover, and as it were the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, `Look at your king!’ ¹⁵ and they cried out, `Take away, take away, crucify him;’ Pilate said to them, `Shall I crucify your king?’ the chief priests answered, `We have no king except Caesar.’ ¹⁶ Then, therefore, he delivered him up to them, that he may be crucified, and they took Jesus and led him away, ¹⁷ and bearing his cross, he went forth to the place called Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha; ¹⁸ where they crucified him, and with him two others, on this side, and on that side, and Jesus in the midst. [To qualify as a more evil generation in the future, the anti-christs would not only have to crucify Christ again but do it in a worse way] ¹⁹ And Pilate also wrote a title, and put it on the cross, and it was written, `Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews;’ ²⁰ this title, therefore, was read by many of the Jews, because the place was close to the city where Jesus was crucified, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Roman. ²¹ The chief priests of the Jews said, therefore, to Pilate, `Do not write —The king of the Jews, but that this one said, I am king of the Jews;’ ²² Pilate answered, `What I have written, I have written.’ ²³ The soldiers, therefore, when they crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts and gave to each soldier a part, also the coat, and the coat was seamless, from the top woven throughout, ²⁴ they said, therefore, to one another, `We may not tear it, but cast a lot for it, to see whose it shall be;’ that the writing might be fulfilled, that is says, `They divided my garments to themselves, and upon my raiment they did cast a lot;’ the soldiers, therefore, indeed, did these things. ²⁵ And there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleopas, and Mary the Magdalene; ²⁶ Jesus, therefore, having seen his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he was loving, he saith to his mother, `Woman, lo, thy son;’ ²⁷ afterward he saith to the disciple, `Lo, thy mother;’ and from that hour the disciple took her to his own home . ²⁸ After this, Jesus knowing that all things now have been finished, that the writing may be fulfilled, said, `I thirst;’ ²⁹ a vessel, therefore, was placed full of vinegar, and they having filled a sponge with vinegar, and having put it around a hyssop stalk, did put it to his mouth; ³⁰ when, therefore, Jesus received the vinegar, he said, `It is finished;’ and having bowed the head, gave up the spirit. ³¹ The Jews, therefore, that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, since it was the preparation, (for that sabbath day was a great one,) asked of Pilate that their legs may be broken, and they taken away. ³² The soldiers, therefore, came, and of the first indeed they did break the legs, and of the other who was crucified with him, ³³ and having come to Jesus, when they saw him already having been dead, they did not break his legs; ³⁴ but one of the soldiers with a spear did pierce his side, and immediately there came forth blood and water; ³⁵ and he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and that one has known that true things he speaks, that you also may believe. ³⁶ For these things came to pass, that the Writing may be fulfilled, `A bone of him shall not be broken;’ ³⁷ and again another writing says, `They shall look to him whom they did pierce.’ ³⁸ And after these things did Joseph of Arimathea—being a disciple of Jesus, but concealed, through the fear of the Jews—asks of Pilate, that he may take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave permission; he came, therefore, and took away the body of Jesus, ³⁹ and Nicodemus also came—who came unto Jesus by night at the first—bearing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, as it were, a hundred pounds. ⁴⁰ They took, therefore, the body of Jesus, and bound it with linen clothes with the spices, according as it was the custom of the Jews to prepare for burial; ⁴¹ and there was in the place where he was crucified a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one was yet laid; ⁴² there, therefore, because of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was nigh, they laid Jesus.

Preparation for the passover commenced at the sixth hour – “and it was the preparation of the passover, and as it were the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, `Look at your king!’ ¹⁵ and they cried out, `Take away, take away, crucify him…”

Jewish history records that the time frame for legally killing the Passover sacrifice was between noon and sunset (the 6th hour – 12th hour of daylight). Jewish commentator Alfred Edersheim wrote: The period designated as ‘between the two evenings’ when the Paschal lamb was to be slain… There can be no question that, in the time of Christ, it was understood to refer to the interval between the commencement of the sun’s decline and what was reckoned as the hour of his final disappearance.

The 6th hour of daylight was about an hour long. But they didn’t have clocks like we do. They couldn’t say things like 12:24 PM. 12:24 is only a minute long to us. 12:24:33 is only a second long. They lived in a different world than we do.

The Jewish Encyclopedia agrees:
The time “between the two evenings” was construed to mean “after noon and until nightfall”

The question: Was Jesus the morning or evening sacrifice? He was actually nailed to the cross in morning. It was the 3rd hour of the Jewish day (9 AM in the morning to us). He died after the first Jewish evening. It was the 9th hour of the Jewish day (3 PM in the afternoon to us). And since darkness covered the land for 3 hours starting at noon, He may have been the only evening sacrifice until after He died and the sunlight returned to the land. He transitioned both morning and evening sacrifices to bring the new creation day out of His darkness and into His resurrection morning. He was crucified between an unbeliever and a believer, midweek, between sabbaths, between the covenants, between the evenings. He died in the dark and wasn’t seen alive (in the land) until the 3rd day dawning of the new covenant creation.

Any time after the 6th hour (high noon) was considered to be the evening or between the evenings. There is no afternoon in biblical time keeping. The two parts of the Hebrews’ daytime were morning and evening: not morning, afternoon and evening. Either the Sun was going up or the Sun was going down or it was the moment of high noon and the Sun was neither going up nor down. Biblically, the first evening is at noon and the second evening is at sunset. At the Sun’s zenith there is a moment when the Sun is neither rising nor setting. That was the first even. After sunset the Sun is neither seen as setting nor rising again. That is the second even. The first evening lasts a moment. The moment of the second evening may be a little ambiguous. But Passover preparation day was the time between the two evenings. All sacrifices, whether morning or between the evenings, were in the daylight hours.

Exodus 12:6 (YLT) – (Passover sacrifice and prep from noon to 6)
`And it hath become a charge to you, until the fourteenth day of this month, and the whole assembly of the company of Israel have slaughtered it between the evenings;

Exodus 16:12 (YLT) – (Quail from noon to 6)
`I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel; speak unto them, saying, Between the evenings ye eat flesh, and in the morning ye are satisfied with bread, and ye have known that I am Jehovah your God.’

Exodus 29:39 (YLT) – (one sacrifice before mid-day and one sacrifice after mid-day)
the one lamb thou dost prepare in the morning, and the second lamb thou dost prepare between the evenings;

Exodus 29:41 (YLT) – (one sacrifice before mid-day and one sacrifice after mid-day)
`And the second lamb thou dost prepare between the evenings; according to the present of the morning, and according to its libation, thou dost prepare for it, for sweet fragrance, a fire-offering, to Jehovah: —

Exodus 30:8 (YLT) – (daily lamp lighting and incense before dark)
and in Aaron’s causing the lamps to go up between the evenings, he doth perfume it; a continual perfume before Jehovah to your generations.

Leviticus 23:5 (YLT) – (Passover preparation day)
in the first month, on the fourteenth of the month, between the evenings, is the passover [preparation] to Jehovah;

Numbers 9:3 (YLT) – (Passover preparation day)
in the fourteenth day of this month between the evenings ye prepare it in its appointed season; according to all its statutes, and according to all its ordinances ye prepare it.’

Numbers 9:5 (YLT) – (Passover preparation day)
and they prepare the passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between the evenings, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that Jehovah hath commanded Moses, so have the sons of Israel done.

Numbers 9:11 (YLT) – (Passover preparation day)
in the second month, on the fourteenth day, between the evenings they prepare it; with unleavened and bitter things they eat it;

Numbers 28:4 (YLT) – (one sacrifice before mid-day and one after mid-day)
the one lamb thou preparest in the morning, and the second lamb thou preparest between the evenings;

Numbers 28:8 (YLT) – (one sacrifice before mid-day and one sacrifice after mid-day)
`And the second lamb thou dost prepare between the evenings; as the present of the morning, and as its libation thou preparest—a fire-offering, a sweet fragrance to Jehovah.

Jesus was on the cross for 3 hours before the first evening. On that unique evening of Jesus’ crucifixion the Sun was not seen going up or down for 3 hours. From the point of view of those in Jerusalem, the first evening suddenly seemed like the second evening. It was as if the time for sacrifices had ended in the darkness at high noon. High noon was the middle of Jesus’ time on the cross before He died, but He wasn’t immediately taken down after He died either. On the first evening of that day, it got dark and the Sun was not seen for 3 hours. After 3 hours the Sun returned to setting, just as Jesus’ suffering ended. 3 hours later the Sun disappeared into the dark again. They only had 3 hours of daylight to prepare lambs that year. It was the second evening of Nisan 14th when the 15th officially began. Jesus died as the passover lamb after the first evening and had to be buried before the second evening. I would guess no other lambs were slaughtered until Jesus died and the light of preparation day returned.

Obviously, the English word “evening” that we use to represent the Hebrew word עֶ֫רֶב (e.ערב ‛ereb eh’-reb) conveys a different meaning to us than ereb did to them. We don’t have two evenings: one at noon and another at dusk, like they did. On some occasions God told them to kill the first lamb in the morning (before the first evening) and the second lamb between the evenings (before the second evening). Between evenings is after the first evening of the day and before the second evening of the day.

KJV removes the word “between” and makes “evening” singular. This would still somewhat make sense because the passover sacrifices started at the first evening, but not many English Bible readers would think the evening sacrifice started in full daylight at high noon. We would imagine slaughtering and cooking lambs by candlelight and moonlight rather than broad daylight after reading KJV. The passover lamb had to be prepared in the daylight and all eaten up before morning. Passover was a daylight sacrifice and a daylight preparation for a night time meal. The moon was always full in the middle of their months because their moonth started when they saw the first sliver of a new moon. By mid-month it was full. The following KJV translation seems to us to have the Hebrews cooking at night after the high sabbath started on the 15th. A full moon provided enough light to eat the prepared meal, but I wouldn’t want a million people butchering and cooking all those animals by the light of the moon.

Exodus 12:6

KJV ⁶ And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

Similarly the quail did not arrive in the darkness at the 6 PM evening, rather at the high noon evening.

Exodus 16:13-15

CLV ¹³ When it came to be in the evening, quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning the lying of the night mist came to be around the camp;” ¹⁴ and the lying of the night mist went up; and behold, on the surface of the wilderness was a thin flake, thin as hoarfrost, on the earth. ” ¹⁵ When the sons of Israel saw it, they said, each man to his brother: What is it? for they did not know what it was, So Moses said to them: It is the bread which Yahweh has given to you for food.

Reparation for sin was twice accounted for every day during the working hours. Both halves of the daytime had to be atoned for during both the rising and the setting hours of the Sun. Jesus made the final necessary sacrifice in order to bring His people into their new non-typical covenant where there is no more night. His never-ending day is His new creation. He made atonement to rescue His people from the old creation.

Don’t think we can get time confused today? For us modern scientific time-keepers, both 12 o’clocks are both 12 hours before and 12 hours after the designated meridian for that time zone, but we usually call midnight ‘AM’ (before the meridian) and high noon ‘PM’ (after the meridian). To add to the confusion, midnight is the moment we are transitioning into a new calendar day. There is no logical way to say which of the two days you are in at that moment. Always have someone meet you in the middle of the night at 11:59 or 12:01 or they may very logically miss the designated day by 24 hours. Military time avoids this particular confusion by dividing the moment of transition in half. 0:00 refers to midnight at the beginning of a day while 24:00 is midnight at the end of a day. If you meet on the International Date Line you are in two different days due to location rather than time.

AM = Ante meridian: we usually designate before noon

PM = Post meridian: we usually designate after noon

Today we often sacrifice scientific accuracy for expediency. Since all the meridians, by which we designate our 24 time zones, converge at the North and South poles, it becomes progressively more difficult to scientifically delineate the time Zones as we approach the poles. If an island has two time zones, only one will be used just to avoid confusion. It turns out that this practically happens all over the globe. Both China and Greenland span five time zones, but they only use one. The lines of human time keeping are far from straight forward when plotted on the map. Scientific truth does not always best serve our human needs. Humanity rules even over science. Jesus’ sacrifice was made so we could humanely rule over all creation with God, not scientifically. Without humanity we would not have developed science as we know it. The new covenant started with the perfect firstborn human for us to rule His new creation with. Science isn’t king. Science serves the King. The first born of humanity is King.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/World_Time_Zones_Map.png