TWILIGHT

twi'-lit (nesheph): The twilight of Palestine is of short duration, owing to the low latitude, there being scarcely more than an hour between sunset and complete darkness. It is a distinct boundary between daytime and the darkness. The people of Palestine still give the time of an event as so many hours before or after sunrise or sunset: "David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day" (1 Samuel 30:17), and "They rose up in the twilight to go" (2 Kings 7:5). The word is evidenly used in the sense of darkness in "the stars of twilight" (Job 3:9) and "The adulterer waiteth for the twilight" (Job 24:15). the King James Version has "twilight" in Ezekiel 12:6 ff, but the Revised Version (British and American) has "dark."

Alfred H. Joy

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.