after Trin.).
In the neighbourhood of the Lake, night was the only time of solitude.
' Save in the recorded hours of our Lord's praying, the history of Galilee has no intervals of silence and loneliness ; the noise of a close and busy life is always audible ; and to every crisis in the Gospels and iii Josephus we see crowds immediately swarm ' (G. A. Smith, HGUL p. 421).
It may be urged that Jesus teaches by His ex- ample the value of prayer in the silence of night. There are many references to such prayer in the Psalms (cf. Ps 119^-) ; and it is not without signifi- cance that the time is midnight in the parable in which Jesus teaches the lesson of ' shameless ' prayer (avaiSia, Lk IP). 'The thing could never have taken place in the daytime. It is a story of midnight importunity ' (Wliyte).
There is no reason to doubt the preference of Jesus for an abode where He would be sure of mountain solitude ; we have no record that He entered Tiberias, which was a walled city {HGHL p. 449). ' He entered Jericho only to pass through it.' 'This freedom Jesus had from childhood ' in Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethany, and other resting- places. When men did not need Him, He must be free to leave them. It is substantially true that ' Jesus never slept in a walled city ' (see Expos. III. iii. [1886] p. 146). The scenes of rescue on the Lake were in the night-time ; then it was He Avalked upon the sea and stilled the waves (Mk 6^9, cf. 439).
The closing incidents of the life of Jesus cannot be pictured except against the background of night. It was dark when they sang a hymn, and went to the Mount of Olives (Mt 263"). The ap- proach of the soldiers was marked by their lanterns (Jn 18-'). Peter warmed himself in the chilly air before a fire of coals (Jn 18^®). It was possible in the dark to follow undetected afar off (Mt 26^^). The panic of the disciples owed something to the nififht. It was at cock-crowing that Peter remem-
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NINEVEH, NINEVITES
bered his Master's warning, and wept bitterly. The air of night is over all these scenes. It was ' the night in which Jesus was betrayed ' (1 Co 11-^).
After the Resurrection, night was falling when Jesus revealed Himself to the two at Emmaus in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24^^). They, on returning to .Jerusalem, found the discijjles gathei'ed together, and Jesus appeared amongst them. When, for fear of tlie Jews, the disciples met at eventide, Jesus came to them (Jn 20'") ; and it was when the day was breaking that He welcomed His weary disciples to the shore (21*).
It is impossible to discover with accuracy tlie character of these Syrian nights, so wide is the variation in the climate between jdace and place, season and season ; it is not clear whether, for example, it is literally true to say, ' For thee I trembled in tlie nightly frost.' Even when we know the impression made upon the Western traveller, we cannot tell how Jesus and His disciples, liardened by the bracing uplands of Galilee, endured the cold and tlie mists of night. It is clear that the nights are often as cold as the days are hot (cf. Gn SI''", Jer 36^" ; see Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, i. 73). At certain seasons in late summer Jesus would be e.xposed in His nightly vigils to tiie dense chilly clouds of mist of which the Song of Songs (5^) speaks : ' For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the niglit.' For modern descriptions of nights spent in the sacred scenes, reference may be made to Warburton's Crescent and the Cross, and Kinglake's Eothcn. But in order to discover the colours, the lights and the half-lights of the Syrian night, those modern painters are tlie best guides who, like Holman Hunt and William Hole, have studied the Holy Land in the lights and sliadows, wliich are the same as when Jesus watched through the hours of night.
4. Metaphorical applications of ' night.' — Tiie contrast between night and day, darkness and light, belongs to tlie stock of ideas common to all religions, to the most ancient vocabulary of thought. It is freely used in the OT and NT.
(a) In the opening of the Synoptic Gospels, quota- tions are used to depict as darkness the state of the world before the dawn of Christ (Mt 4i«, Lk 1™, cf. 2 Co 4**). It is upon such darkness that the gospel shines ; and at the consummation of the Kingdom it is tlie outer darkness that awaits tlie evil-doers (Mt S'^ 2.5»"). Between the two areas of darkness there is the kingdom of light brought in by Jesus, whose disciples were to be the light of the world (Mt .5'*). When Jesus Mas arrested. He said that the darkness had prevailed (Lk 22'^='), for the high priests were the emissaries of darkness. The night was therefore an emblem of all that was set against the Kingdom of God, of the ignorance and corruption of the world which crucified Christ.
(b) The Fourth Gospel has a certain framework of contrasts, amongst which is the opposition be- tween the light of Christ and the darkness (F 8'"^ 1110 i235-3s^ 1 Jn Qs-H). ^vhile Christ is revealed as tlie source of light. His enemies are unmasked as the story proceeds. Though ' darkness ' is used in this connexion, it is impossible to escape from the thought of this conflict when we read of ' night ' in this (iospel. It is used to denote the close of the divinely appointed day of service (Jn 9*). The liealing of the man born blind was part of the manifestation of God, for which there was a set time. This day being past, neither Jesus nor His disciples could work. ' In the application to Jesus the night is His death, and His retreat into the invisible world ' (Loisy). When Jesus persisted, in si)ite of the warnings of His disciples, in returning to Jud<Tea, He said that the hours of the day were given for work ; so long as it was the appointed