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Bible Encyclopedias
Cockcrowing
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or 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 cockcrowing emphatically, and by way of eminence; though sometimes the distinctions of the first and second cockcrowing are met with in Jewish and heathen writers. 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. 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 (;;; ).
It has been considered a contradiction that Matthew () records our Lord to have said to Peter, 'Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice;' whereas St. Mark () says, 'Before the cock crow twice.' But Matthew, giving only the general sense of the admonition (as also; ), evidently alludes to that only which was customarily called the cockcrowing, but Mark, who wrote under Peter's inspection, more accurately recording the very words, mentions the two cockcrowings.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Cockcrowing'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/c/cockcrowing.html.
