ὥρα (Hour) – Greek Studies

Original Word: ὥρα, ας, ἡ

Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine

hóra: a time or period, an hour

Transliteration: hóra

Phonetic Spelling: (ho’-rah)

Definition: a time or period, an hour

Usage: (a) a definite space of time, a season, (b) an hour, (c) the particular time for anything.

(Ref: Biblehub)

Matthew 24 is the account in which Jesus instructs his 12 disciples about the end times and Matthew writes down what Jesus said.  So if you don’t already know, one day Jesus will return to the earth and completely make right everything that is wrong. He will complete the salvation work of God on that day and the church will receive their reward for following him that reward in the most basic form is also called a gift and that gift is salvation, a big word that just means eternal life. His disciples ask Jesus what the signs of his 2nd coming and Jesus begins speaking. Instead of copying and pasting the whole passage, I want to encourage you to go read it. Read it Here…

Matthew 24:4-8 (Birth Pains) False teachers, war, famines, and earthquakes. If you don’t already know, the earth has about 1 or 2 earthquakes every hour. You can check it out here…

Matthew 24:9-14 talks about persecution, the gospel will be preached all over the world, and people will hate each other. 

Matthew 24:15 is where things get crazy. Up to verse 14, we pretty much understand what is going on, but then verse 15 happens and it starts talking about the “abomination that causes desolation”. 

What is the abomination that causes desolation? 

Jesus tells us to go read Daniel. Daniel 9:27 says ”He will make a firm covenant, with, many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple until the decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator.” So if you go to seminary and get a degree or did some history study, you would find that this happened around 70 AC. There was a ruler that walked into the 2nd temple and sacrifice an unclean animal on the altar, which is an abomination. 

Matthew 24:15 isn’t talking about what happened around 70 AC with that situation, but what will happen during the 7-year peace agreement that the antichrist will make with not only Israel but with all of the middle east.  There will come a time when all wars in the middle east will stop and there will be peace deals made, signed, and confirmed in the middle east and the antichrist who will be a world political leader will be the mediator of it all. 

So when this 7-year peace agreement is signed, there will be peace for the first half of it and then the 2nd half will be war the other half and it will last until the 2nd coming of Jesus. The way that war begins will be because of the Anti-Christ. He will walk into the 3rd temple and sacrifice an unclean animal on the altar, just like what happened around 70 AC, but this time this abomination will lead to desolation. That is why it’s called the “abomination of desolation”. The Greek word for desolation is rooted in ἐρήμωσις, meaning “lay waste, cut off, or barren.” This verse makes me wonder if the 3rd temple will be destroyed due to the abomination that takes place in it. I also think of how there will be a war immediately after the abomination happens, imagine the anger of every God-fearing Jew that witnesses this take place. That anger will be just enough to kick off a war with the nations Anti-Christ would be leading at that time. Israel VS the World. We call it WW3. The bible describes it as the Great Tribulation, the 2nd half of the 7-year peace agreement, which gets broken. 

How will the Abomination of Desolation happen?

The “All Roads Led the Heaven” theology will be how. So once the peace agreement is signed, they will rebuild the 3rd temple and then the three top religions of the world will worship Yahweh on the temple mount. Hard to believe right now, but it will happen. The Dome of the Rock that sits on the temple mount will not be removed, the 3rd temple will be rebuilt right next to it, that would fulfill what God told John in Revelations 11:2 “but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.” Some translations will say “given over to the Gentiles”. God’s plan was always to include all nations, but even at this future moment in history, we will see the nations reject God and rage war against his people. 

Now feel free to read the rest of the chapter down until you reach verse 36 where Jesus says, “Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son —except the Father only.” Matthew 24:36

And then look at this other verses “42 Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day[s] your Lord is coming. 43 But know this: If the homeowner had known what time[t] the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. 44 This is why you also must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Matthew 24:42-44

In Matthew 24:36 Jesus talks about a day and an hour. The day is referring to the day of abomination of desolation. The way we can know that is by looking at the context of the verse. The word for “hour” in verse 36 in greek is ὥρας which is used to refer to the actual day with the sun raise and sunset or it could also refer to a shortened season as it does in 1 Thessalonians 2:17 “But as for us, brothers, after we were forced to leave you for a short time (in person, not in heart), we greatly desired and made every effort to return and see you face to face.” The phrase “a short time” in the Greek text is the same exact word ὥρας. It could mean a short time, short hour, or short season. It’s not referring to an actual hour, but a season. 

When Jesus said you will not know the day or hour in verse 36, he was referring to a season for the hour. The season he was referring to was the season he just got done talking about, the season called the Great Tribulation. No one knows when the Great Tribulation is, because no one knows when the day of abomination is, apparently not even Jesus, which I don’t fully understand. No scholar can fully explain why Jesus doesn’t know when that day is. It’s one of the great unknown questions in the bible. 

In verses 42 – 44, Jesus starts talking about His own coming. He refers to it as the “day your Lord is coming”. He doesn’t call it a day like verse 36, he attaches “Lord” to it, this is to make a clear cut that he is speaking about two different days. In verse 44 he makes it more clear by doing what God likes repeating himself with different words. He says “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” The word for ‘hour’ in this context is ὥρᾳ. This version of the word is pointing to an actual set time in a set actional day. It’s a literal time stamp. 

If that isn’t enough, in Daniel 12:11 God tells Daniel that when the Abomination that causes desolation happened, there will be 1290 days. He tells Daniel “Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1335 days.” Daniel 12:12. Why are they blessed? Jesus returns on the 1335 day. The 2nd coming is literally told to us. The 1290 days would be the 2nd half of the 7-year period, the extra 45 days will be some kind of worldwide persecution of Christians of some sort. The reason I say that is because the verse says “Blessed is he who waits and arrives”. Something like a mini persecution will take place just prior to the 2nd coming of Jesus. This will most likely be because of the great revival that takes place during the whole 7 years, during which people realize that everything from the bible was true and people start turning back to God. That last 45 days will be the last test of faith. 

See God continues to give us chance after chance to turn back to him, he doesn’t want us to go to hell, but we have to accept Jesus is our Lord and Savior. We have to Walk With God. We need to get serious about our faith. 

Bible prophecy can get deep. I could go on to explain how the USA will be Israel’s best friend during the Great Tribulation and how the role the use play in the end times will be that of being a safe place for Christians to escape persecution. We can save it for another time. If you liked this content, subscribe to the $1 per month club and you will get access to future bible studies like this one where we explore the text from a Greek standpoint. Your support will help our ministry reach the world for Christ and strengthen your faith.