The Hebrews evidently divided the night into three periods, called “watches.” Each one covered one third of the time between sundown and sunrise, or about four hours, depending on the season. (Psalm 63:6) It was “at the start of the middle night watch,” which ran from about ten at night to about two in the morning, that Gideon made his attack on the Midianite camp. An attack at this time clearly took the guards by complete surprise. Surely, the cautious Gideon could not have chosen a more strategic time for his attack!​—Judges 7:19.

At the time of the Exodus, Jehovah made “the sea go back by a strong east wind all night long,” allowing the Israelites to cross over on dry land. By the time the Egyptians caught up with them, it was already “the morning watch,” and Jehovah went throwing the camp of the Egyptians into confusion, finally destroying them by bringing the water “back to its normal condition at the approaching of morning.” (Exodus 14:21-27) So it took almost a whole night for the sea to be divided and the Israelites to cross through it.

Nocturnal Divisions

By the time of Roman domination, the Jews seem to have adopted the Greek and Roman division of the night into four watches instead of the three that they used formerly. At Mark 13:35, Jesus evidently referred to the four divisions. The “late in the day” watch ran from sunset until about nine in the evening. The second watch, the “midnight” watch, began at about nine o’clock and ended at midnight. The “cockcrowing” covered from midnight until about three o’clock. And the final watch, “early in the morning,” expired at dawn, or about six o’clock.

The “cockcrowing” watch is of particular interest because of Jesus’ words to Peter at Mark 14:30: “Before a cock crows twice, even you will disown me three times.” While some commentators maintain that the “twice” refers to specific points of time​—midnight and dawn, respectively—​A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, edited by James Hastings, indicates that “as a matter of fact cocks crow during the night, in the East as elsewhere, at irregular times from midnight onward.” Apparently, Jesus was not referring to the specific time when Peter would deny him. Rather, he was giving a sign to mark his words to Peter, which were accurately fulfilled that very night.​—Mark 14:72.

It was “in the fourth watch period of the night”​—between three and six in the morning—​that Jesus, walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee, came to his disciples, who were in a boat “many hundreds of yards away from land.” It is, perhaps, easy to understand why the disciples “were troubled, saying: ‘It is an apparition!’ And they cried out in their fear.” (Matthew 14:23-26) On the other hand, this shows that Jesus must have spent considerable time praying by himself in the mountain. Since this was soon after John the Baptizer had been beheaded by Herod Antipas and just before the Passover, which marked the start of the last year of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus surely had much to meditate on in his personal prayer to the Father.

Along with the four watches, a 12-hour count of the nighttime was also in use. In order to escort Paul safely to Caesarea, military commander Claudius Lysias told his officers to get ready a band of 470 soldiers “at the third hour of the night.” (Acts 23:23, 24) Thus Paul was taken safely under cover of night away from Jerusalem.