The watches of the night, or night watches, refers to the ancient practice of dividing the night into periods for the goal of keeping watch. Lasting from dusk to dawn, guards relieved each other at each of these periods. The Hebrew and Babylonian watches of the night were divided into three military watches; the first (dusk), middle (midnight) and (dawn) watch. As Christianity began, the number of watches increased to four watches due to the influence of the Roman Empire, who used four watches throughout the night. The phrase "watches of the night" occurs several places in the Old Testament, the New Testament, Rabbinic literature and English literature (Old English, Restoration, Romantic and Victorian literature). The existence of watches of the night in the New Testament conveyed spiritual significance. The phrase is also found in the Dhammapada, a collection of sayings by the Buddha, and as well as in some Hindu texts.
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This article is an automated import of the Wikipedia article "Watches of the night", available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watches_of_the_night . Text is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.