Bible Dictionary
Night
The night-hawk was a bird listed among the unclean birds in the Law. The exact species is uncertain and has been identified with an owl or nightjar.
Definition
Night is the period of darkness, and in Scripture it also serves as a figure for brevity, adversity, disappointment, spiritual blindness, the present age, and the ending of opportunity.
Biblical Usage
Jesus used night for the close of the opportunity to labor. Paul used it for the present age in contrast with the coming day and for the condition of the unregenerate, while Revelation presents the passing of night as associated with the final realization of God’s kingdom.
Historical Background
The biblical figurative uses draw on the ordinary contrast between night and day: darkness suggests distress or blindness, while day suggests clarity, redemption, and the age to come.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Smith's Bible Dictionary
[Day]
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>nit.</p><p>See DAY AND NIGHT for the natural usage and the various terms.</p><p>1. In the Old Testament:</p><p>Figurative uses: The word "night" (laylah or layil is sometimes used figuratively in the Old Testament. Thus, Moses compares the brevity of time, the lapse of a thousand years, to "a watch in the night" (Ps 90:4). Adversity is depicted by it in such places as Job 35:10; compare Isa 8:20; Jer 15:9. Disappointment and despair are apparently depicted by it in the "burden of Dumah" (Isa 21:11,12); and spiritual blindness, coming upon the false prophets (Mic 3:6); again sudden and overwhelming confusion (Am 5:8; Isa 59:10 the King James Version, nesheph, "twilight" as in the Revised Version (British and American)).</p><p>2. In the New Testament:</p><p>On the lips of Jesus (Joh 9:4) it signifies the end of opportunity to labor; repeated in that touching little allegory spoken to His disciples when He was called to the grave of Lazarus (Joh 11:9,10). Paul also uses the figure in reference to the Parousia (Ro 13:12), where "night" seems to refer to the present aeon and "day" to the aeon to come. He also uses it in 1Th 5:5,7 where the status of the redeemed is depicted by "day," that of the unregenerate by "night," again, as the context shows, in reference to the Parousia. In Re 21:25 and 22:5, the passing of the "night" indicates the realization of that to which the Parousia looked forward, the establishment of the kingdom of God forever. See also Delitzsch, Iris, 35.</p><p>Henry E. Dosker</p>