Time

Time begins as a creature. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1) sets the first measurable instant; the lights of the firmament are then assigned to mark "signs, and seasons, and days and years" (Gen 1:14). From that opening, Scripture handles time as a gift to be reckoned, redeemed, and finally closed. The same God who fixed "a boundary on the face of the waters, To the confines of light and darkness" (Job 26:10) is the One who "changes the times and the seasons" (Dan 2:21) and who, through the angel of the Apocalypse, swears that "there will be delay no longer" (Rev 10:6).

The Beginning of Time

Genesis 1 names time before it names anything else that moves. The lights are placed "for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years" (Gen 1:14), and the post-flood promise fastens that order to creation: "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease" (Gen 8:22). Joshua reaches back into this same horizon when he reminds Israel that "your⁺ fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods" (Jos 24:2).

Sirach reads the same creation order liturgically. Some days are like every other; others are set apart. "Why is one day distinguished from another, When the light of every day in the year is from the sun? By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished, And he varied seasons and feasts. Some of them he exalted and hallowed, And some of them he made ordinary days" (Sir 33:7-9). The moon, too, "he made for its due season, To rule over periods for an everlasting sign" (Sir 43:6), and the festivals of Israel are "set in order... to perfection" (Sir 47:10).

Watches and Reckonings

Israel measures time by named months and counted years. The Exodus generation arrives at Sinai "in the third month after the sons of Israel had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day they came into the wilderness of Sinai" (Ex 19:1); the tabernacle is reared "in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month" (Ex 40:17); and Solomon begins the Temple "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Ziv" (1Ki 6:1).

Within the day, Scripture marks watches. Saul attacks the Ammonites "in the morning watch" (1Sa 11:11). Yahweh "looked forth on the host of the Egyptians" "in the morning watch" (Ex 14:24). The Lord comes to the disciples on the sea "about the fourth watch of the night" (Mark 6:48). Sun-dial time appears on Hezekiah's stairs: "The shadow has gone forward ten steps. Shall it come back ten steps?" (2Ki 20:9). Yahweh answers by reversing the steps "backward ten steps" (Isa 38:8).

Seasons and the Lord Who Changes Them

Seasons are sun-and-moon ordinances under direct divine government. "He appointed the moon for seasons: The sun knows his going down" (Ps 104:19). The same hand that orders the rhythms also reorders history: "He changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise" (Dan 2:21). Sirach holds the two together — natural seasons hallowed by the Lord (Sir 33:7-9) and seasons of feast and worship "set in order... to perfection" (Sir 47:10) — without ever loosening them from the Creator's appointment.

Days as a Shadow

The same Scripture that names time as a gift names it as brief. "The days of our years are seventy years, Or even by reason of strength eighty years; Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow; For it is soon gone, and we fly away" (Ps 90:10). Jacob calls his life a pilgrimage — "few and evil have been the days of the years of my life" (Gen 47:9) — and David prays as "a stranger... A sojourner, as all my fathers were" (Ps 39:12). The Chronicler echoes him: "our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no hope [to remain on the earth]" (1Ch 29:15). The psalmist of Psalm 119 prays as "a sojourner in the earth" (Ps 119:19).

The New Testament keeps the figure. "All flesh is as grass, And all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls: But the word of the Lord stays forever" (1Pe 1:24-25). The patriarchs "died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb 11:13). Christians, says the Hebrews preacher, "do not have a city that stays here, but we seek after [the city] which is to come" (Heb 13:14); Peter calls them "sojourners and pilgrims" (1Pe 2:11). The Epistle to the Greeks fixes the same image in its earliest extant form: Christians "dwell in their own countries, but as sojourners... every foreign land is their country, and every country a foreign land" (Gr 5:5), and "the immortal soul dwells in a mortal tabernacle; and Christians sojourn among corruptible things, looking for incorruption in the heavens" (Gr 6:8).

Underneath the brevity stands a contrast. The earth and heavens "will perish, but you will endure; Yes, all of them will wax old like a garment; As a vesture you will change them, and they will be changed" (Ps 102:26). Paul draws the same line for the Corinthians: "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2Co 4:18). Even gifts inside the church share that pattern — prophecies, tongues, and knowledge "will be done away," but "faith, hope, and love" remain, "and the greatest of these is love" (1Co 13:8, 13).

Probation and the Right Use of Time

Because the years are short, Scripture treats earthly life as a season of testing. Yahweh led Israel forty years "that he might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not" (Deut 8:2). The barren fig tree gets one more year, "Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I will dig about it, and dung it" (Luke 13:8). Moses prays accordingly: "So teach us to number our days, That we may get us a heart of wisdom" (Ps 90:12). The Preacher charges the young, "Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, I have no pleasure in them" (Eccl 12:1).

Paul says it crisply twice: "Look therefore carefully how you⁺ walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Eph 5:15-16); and "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time" (Col 4:5). The shortened horizon reorders ordinary commitments: "the time is shortened, that from now on both those who have wives may be as though they had none... and those who use the world, as not using it to the full: for the fashion of this world passes away" (1Co 7:29, 31).

Sirach gathers the same wisdom into proverbs. "My son, observe the time and season, and be afraid of evil" (Sir 4:20). "From morning until evening the time changes, And all things move swiftly before the Lord" (Sir 18:26). And bluntly: "Remember that death does not delay; and the decree of Sheol has not been declared to you" (Sir 14:12).

Opportunity Lost and Seized

The same swiftness that warns the wise mocks the slow. "The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, and we are not saved" (Jer 8:20). Elisha rebukes Joash for striking the ground only three times — "You should have struck five or six times: then you would have struck Syria until you had consumed it" (2Ki 13:19). Sirach observes that some are restrained from sin only by lack of chance: "if, for lack of power, he is hindered from sinning, He will do evil when he finds opportunity" (Sir 19:28); "One is hindered from sinning through lack [of opportunity], And when he rests he is not troubled" (Sir 20:21).

Jesus presses the limit: "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work" (John 9:4). Mary's anointing is commended on the same logic — "She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for the burying" (Mark 14:8). Paul remembers Onesiphorus' service in similar terms (2Ti 1:18). And in the Maccabean histories, opportunity becomes a political instrument: "Jonathan saw that the time served him" (1Ma 12:1); "we, having opportunity, claim the inheritance of our fathers" (1Ma 15:34).

Haste and Delay

Scripture both commands haste and warns against it. The angels of Sodom drag a delaying Lot — "But he lingered; and the men laid hold on his hand" (Gen 19:16) — then urge him: "Hurry, escape there; for I can't do anything until you have come there" (Gen 19:22). Esau's repentance comes late: "even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears" (Heb 12:17). The Maccabean counsel runs the other way: "unless you speedily prevent them, they will do greater things than these, and you will not be able to subdue them" (1Ma 6:27). Either way, the verb is the same — time refuses to wait on indecision.

Waiting Upon Yahweh

The counter-virtue is patient waiting. "Wait for Yahweh: Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for Yahweh" (Ps 27:14). "Those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings as eagles; they will run, and not be weary; they will walk, and not faint" (Isa 40:31). Sirach makes the same charge to those under trial: "You⁺ who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy; And do not turn aside lest you⁺ fall" (Sir 2:7); and prays, "Give the reward to those who wait for you, That your prophets may be shown to be faithful" (Sir 36:16). Waiting is not passivity; it is the right posture toward a God who keeps his own clock.

The Accepted Time

Inside human history Scripture marks particular windows of grace. Yahweh tells the Servant, "In an acceptable time I have answered you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you" (Isa 49:8). The psalmist makes that the day's appeal: "Today, oh that you⁺ would [accept his Speech]!" (Ps 95:7). Paul lifts the line into the present tense of his ministry: "look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation" (2Co 6:2). The Lord's own preaching opens with the same declaration: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent⁺, and believe⁺ in the good news" (Mark 1:15).

The Fullness of Time

The arc of redemption converges on a single point. "When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (Gal 4:4). The dispensation widens outward from there: "to a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth" (Eph 1:10). Hebrews names the same instant from the priestly side: "now once at the very end of the [past] ages he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb 9:26). Paul tells Timothy that Christ "gave himself a ransom for all; the testimony [to be borne] in its own times" (1Ti 2:6); to Titus he writes that God "in his own seasons manifested his word in the message" (Tit 1:3). Daniel's seventy-weeks vision had already written the same arithmetic: "Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins... and to bring in everlasting righteousness" (Dan 9:24).

The Epistle to the Greeks reads the long delay before that hour as deliberate restraint, not absence. "For so long a time, therefore, as he retained in mystery and reserved his wise counsel, he seemed to us to neglect us, and to be indifferent" (Gr 8:10); "but after he revealed by his beloved Child, and manifested the things prepared from the beginning, he at one and the same time bestowed on us all things" (Gr 8:11).

Time, Times, and Half a Time

Daniel marks the apocalyptic interval with a measured phrase. The little horn "will speak words against the Most High, and will wear out the saints of the Most High; and he will think to change the times and the law; and they will be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time" (Dan 7:25). The man clothed in linen, swearing by him who lives forever, repeats the formula: "it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have made an end of breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished" (Dan 12:7). The interval is bounded; the persecution has a stop.

The Last Days and the Day of the Lord

Scripture distinguishes a present "last days" from a final "day." The age inaugurated by Christ is already "the last days": "in the last days grievous times will come" (2Ti 3:1); "in the last days mockers will come with mockery, walking after their own desires" (2Pe 3:3). Isaiah and Daniel saw the same horizon prophetically: "in the latter days... the mountain of Yahweh's house will be established on the top of the mountains" (Isa 2:2); "there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets, and he has made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days" (Dan 2:28). Sirach prays for that hour: "Hasten the end, and ordain the appointed time, For who may say to you:? What are you doing??" (Sir 36:8).

The terminus itself is "the day of the Lord" or "the last day." Paul says it "so comes as a thief in the night" (1Th 5:2); Peter, that "the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat" (2Pe 3:10). In John's gospel the same day is the day of resurrection and judgment: "Of all that which he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day" (John 6:39); "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:24); "the speech that I spoke, the same will judge him in the last day" (John 12:48). And inside the now of waiting, "the night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light" (Rom 13:12); Christians are "sons of light, and sons of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness" (1Th 5:5).

Night and Dark Days

Time has dark stretches. The Preacher counsels honesty about them: "if man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many" (Eccl 11:8). Jesus tells his disciples that grief itself is timed — "you⁺ will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice: you⁺ will be sorrowful, but your⁺ sorrow will be turned into joy" (John 16:20) — and names the hour of his arrest as one such interval: "this is your⁺ hour, and the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53). One of Peter's perspective-restoring lines belongs here: "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2Pe 3:8). The disproportion is the comfort.

The End of Time

Time is bounded at the far end as well as the near. The angel of Revelation 10 swears by the eternal Creator "that there will be delay no longer" (Rev 10:6). What follows is a new order in which the metric itself drops out: "her gates will in no way be shut by day (for there will be no night there)" (Rev 21:25); "there will be no more night; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for Yahweh God will give them light: and they will reign forever and ever" (Rev 22:5). The rhythm fixed at Genesis 1:14 — sun, moon, and the alternation of light and darkness — gives way to its source. Time, given as a creature, ends in the unmediated presence of the One who gave it.