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Bible Encyclopedias
Cock-Crowing
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or (ἀλεκτοροφωνία ). "The cock usually crows several times about midnight, and again about break of day. The latter time, because he then crows loudest, and his ‘ shrill clarion' is most useful by summoning man to his labors, obtained the appellation of the cock-crowing emphatically, and by way ‘ of ‘ eminence, though sometimes the distinctions of the first and second cock-crowing are met with in Jewish and heathen writers (Bochart, 3. 119). These times, and these names for them, were, no doubt, some of the most ancient divisions of the night adopted in the East, where ‘ the bird of dawning' is most probably indigenous. The latter ‘ cock-crow' was retained even when artificial divisions of time were invented. "In our Lord's time the Jews had evidently adopted the Greek and Roman division of the night into four periods or watches, each consisting of three hours, the first beginning at six in the evening (Luke 12:38; Matthew 14:25; Mark 6:48)" (Kitto, s.v.). This watch (the third of these divisions, comprehending the space between the two cock-crowings) seems to have been about three in the morning, and was known to the Hebrews as קְרַיאַת הִגֶּבֶר (keriath' hag-ge'ber), and was termed by the Romans galliciniuem; and it has been supposed that Jerusalem being a military station of the Romans, the custom of that nation concerning the placing and relieving of the guard was in force there.
These watches, or guards, were declared by the sound of a trumpet; and whenever one guard relieved another, it was always done by the military signal. The whole four- watches were closed by the blowing of a shrill horn. Drakenborch says, the last trumpet, which blew at three in the morning, was sounded three times, to imitate the crowing of a cock. (See WATCH). "It has been considered a contradiction that Matthew 26:34 records our Lord to have said to Peter, ‘ Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice,' whereas Mark 14:30 says, ‘ before the cock crow twice.' But Matthew, giving only the general sense of the admonition (as also Luke 22:34; John 13:38), evidently alludes to that only which was customarily called the cock-crowing; but Mark, who wrote under Peter's inspection, more accurately recording the very words, mentions the two cock-crowings (Wetstein on Mark 14:30; Scheuchzer, Phys. Sacr. on Mark 13:35; Whitby's Note on Matthew 26:34). Another objection to this part of the Evangelical history has been founded upon an assertion of the Mishna (Baba Kaml, 7, 7), ‘ They do not breed cocks at Jerusalem because of the holy things,' i.e., as it is interpreted, cocks turn up the dung- hills, and set free the reptiles by which the sacrifices might be polluted which were eaten as food; and that, consequently, Peter could not hear one crow. But this is sufficiently answered above. Even the traditions themselves on this subject are not uniform; witness the story (in Erubin, p. 26, 1) of a cock which killed a child, and was stoned by order of the council. Other instances are given by Reland, which show that the cock might crow, though not in the city, and yet be heard by Peter in the stillness of the night, especially as the palace of Caiaphas (according to the modern tradition) stood on an elevated situation, at the distance of scarcely 400 yards from the city walls." In the modern East the barndoor fowl is a common appendage to every household, and the cock-crowing is a universal signal of morning in Palestine (Thompson, Land and Book, 2, 552).
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Cock-Crowing'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/c/cock-crowing.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
