Bible Clocks

Silence in Heaven for Half an Hour

If you've ever read the Gospels, you've seen it, time indicated by hour of the day instead of the familiar, modern, hour of the clock (O' Clock for short.) All the times of day given in the Bible's original languages are written as hours of the day, not the modern hour of the clock.

Bible Clocks are clocks with hour and minute hands in the normal location, but the face has been changed so they tell time based on hour of the day instead of the familiar hour of the clock.

Have you ever seen a clock that tells hour of the day? If you're like me, before I started this project, you probably have never seen a clock built this way before.

How I got started

I was late for a weekly prayer meeting. I had an excuse, I'd been to a revival meeting instead. When I got seated, I looked over at the clock to see how late I was. The Holy Spirit spoke, "The clock is wrong!"

I answered, "I know, it's upside down."

"That's not the only problem," came a quick reply.

After study and further prayer I came to the point where I could explain the details of a Biblically correct Bible Clock. Having the answer was satisfactory for a while, but then I was walking around in a store and saw some clocks. I realized I could convert a regular clock and turn it into a Bible Clock. I finally converted a regular clock into a Bible Clock so I could see one, and hang it on my wall.

I showed it to some friends, as an illustration of what I'd learned about Bible Time in general. At that point I found myself getting requests for copies of these same Bible Clocks. That round of requests greatly expanded the selection, from what was only the Elijah Bible Clock listed at the right into the full selection you see there.

My friends were later insistent that I make the same Bible Clock conversions available generally. To that end I opened this website so there was a convienent place for people to learn about how the Bible tells time, to learn about Bible Clocks as a complement to the Bible, and to order copies of my Bible Clocks if they wanted.

Bible Clock Conversions

What you see at the right is a list of all my currently available Bible Clock conversions. They have a wide range of prices and styles, all are available in a standard form from well known commercial clock suppliers and retailers. You can probably find all of the designs listed here, in their regular 12 up, O' Clock, form, at retailers in your own hometown.

What is different about these clocks? The hour and minute hands are in the same place as on a regular, 12 up, 12 hour, North American style analog clock. If you don't look closely, you'll just tell time in the regular way, without much thought.

But, there has been a change. I've rebuilt these clocks. They now have faces that tell time the way the Bible tells time.

By looking at one of these clocks you can tell the normal, regular, O' Clock time, because the hands are in the regular place. You can also use the numbers on the face of the clock to tell the Hour of the Day, the standard way to tell time in the Bible.

The 7 Up Design

The hour hand on a modern clock is a mechanical approximation of a sundial. Before the use of standard time, "High Noon" marked the middle of day, the zero point in regular clocks, and the start of the 7th hour, or mid-day Sabbath, on Bible Clocks.

Unlike sunrise and sunset, High Noon is invariant across seasons and terrain and is always exactly 24 hours from High Noon the day before. High Noon was the traditional time of day when clocks were set using observations of the sun.

All clocks available here are 7 up in their basic design, with the 7th hour beginning at what we normally call noon. This 7 up design is because the 7th hour starts when the hour hand is up. Simple enough.

Divisions of the Hour

There are no direct scripture references explaining the hour has 7 divisions, but there are at least 2 indirect ways to prove this is the correct way to think of the hour.

Modern minutes are built on 5 divisions to the hour, and when multiplied by 12 those 5 divisions yield the common 60 minutes to the hour. When the same system is used on Bible Clocks there are 7 divisons to the hour is multiplied by 12, yeilding 84 minutes to the hour, a higher resolution than on modern clocks.

The hour ring on all Bible clocks are marked with 7 divisions between each hour mark, yeilding 84 minutes to the hour, if you wish to read Bible Time that way.

The problem with these multiplications is they overlook the significant prophetic implications of 7 divisions to the hour. Jesus was operating using this ratio throughout his Passion Week. The Book of Revelation also strongly suggests that prophetic time generally works on a system of 7 divisions to the hour. To stay faithful to these important prophetic uses of hours, Bible Clocks are also marked with an outer ring that shows the 7 divisions to the hour.

Other Articles

There are a series of other articles that will be online soon, sometime in March, that will go into the details of how the clock is derived from scripture as well as fun uses of the clock.

Thanks

All profits from the Bible Clock sales are used to support people in full time ministry. We generally deal with low-level, theoretical issues like Time in the Bible. This sort of call has less popular support than, say, pastoring a church, which is why we offer these for sale as both a useful tool and as a fundraiser.

Phil Stone
Launched August 31, 2006