³ tn Grk “at the ninth hour.” Again, this is the hour of afternoon prayer.

⁸ tn Grk “from the third hour of the night.”

³ tn Grk “even for an hour” (an idiom for a very short period of time).

⁴ tn Grk “my hour” (referring to the time of Jesus’ crucifixion and return to the Father).

¹ tn Grk “In that same hour” (L&N 67.1).

⁴ tn The “hour of the incense offering” is another way to refer to the time of sacrifice.

² tn Grk “he went out again about the sixth and ninth hour.”

¹ tn Grk “at about the ninth hour of the day.” This would be the time for afternoon prayer.

¹ tn Aram “about one hour.” The expression refers idiomatically to a brief period of time of undetermined length.

³ tn Grk “at the ninth hour.” This is calculated from sunrise (Josephus, Ant. 14.4.3 [14.65]; Dan 9:21).

² sn That is, six o’clock in the evening, the hour to pay day laborers. See Lev 19:13b.

¹ sn The pennies refer to the assarion, a small Roman copper coin. One of them was worth one sixteenth of a denarius or less than a half hour’s average wage. Sparrows were the cheapest thing sold in the market. The point of Jesus’ statement is that God knows about even the most financially insignificant things; see Isa 49:15.

¹ sn The penny refers to an assarion, a small Roman copper coin. One of them was worth one-sixteenth of a denarius or less than a half hour’s average wage. Sparrows were the cheapest items sold in the market. The point of Jesus’ statement is that God knows about even the most financially insignificant things; see Isa 49:15.

² sn Father, deliver me from this hour. It is now clear that Jesus’ hour has come—the hour of his return to the Father through crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension (see 12:23). This will be reiterated in 13:1 and 17:1. Jesus states (employing words similar to those of Ps 6:4) that his soul is troubled. What shall his response to his imminent death be? A prayer to the Father to deliver him from that hour? No, because it is on account of this very hour that Jesus has come. His sacrificial death has always remained the primary purpose of his mission into the world. Now, faced with the completion of that mission, shall he ask the Father to spare him from it? The expected answer is no.

³ sn The time has come. Jesus has said before that his “hour” had come, both in 12:23 when some Greeks sought to speak with him, and in 13:1 where just before he washed the disciples’ feet. It appears best to understand the “hour” as a period of time starting at the end of Jesus’ public ministry and extending through the passion week, ending with Jesus’ return to the Father through death, resurrection, and exaltation. The “hour” begins as soon as the first events occur which begin the process that leads to Jesus’ death.

⁴ sn They all shouted…for about two hours. The extent of the tumult shows the racial and social tensions of a cosmopolitan city like Ephesus, indicating what the Christians in such locations had to face.

¹ tn Grk “It happened that after an interval of about three hours.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

¹ tn Grk “It was the third hour.” This time would have been approximate, and could refer to the beginning of the process, some time before Jesus was lifted on the cross.

³ sn The term “sleeps” is figurative, an implied comparison that has become idiomatic (like the contemporary English expression “asleep on the job”). It means that this individual is lazy or oblivious to the needs of the hour.

² tn On ἡρημώθη (hērēmōthē) L&N 20.41 states, “to suffer destruction, with the implication of being deserted and abandoned—‘to be destroyed, to suffer destruction, to suffer desolation.’ ἐρημόομαι: μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἠρημώθη ὁ τοσοῦτος πλοῦτος ‘such great wealth has been destroyed within a single hour’ Re 18:17.”