Greek word · G2256
ἡμιώριον
hēmiōrion
half an hour
A half-hour. It combines 'half' (hēmi-) and 'hour' (hōra). The word is rare and appears only here in the New Testament.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Revelation 8:1
- Range of meaning
A half-hour. It combines 'half' (hēmi-) and 'hour' (hōra). The word is rare and appears only here in the New Testament.
- Against the English
English versions agree on 'half an hour'. The KJV's 'about the space of half an hour' brings out the idea of an interval well.
- How it drifted
Modern readers think of an hour as sixty exact minutes on a clock. In the ancient world an 'hour' was one twelfth of daylight, so it was longer in summer and shorter in winter, and no one could time a half-hour precisely. With John's 'about', the phrase means 'a short while', not 'thirty minutes'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Rare across Greek literature; a few manuscripts spell it ἡμίωρον. Revelation uses 'hour' many times for a short, decisive moment: 'one hour' with the beast (17:12), and 'in one hour' Babylon falls (18:10, 17, 19). 'Half an hour' is shorter still.
Where it appears
Revelation · 1
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Revelation 8:1 ἡμιώριον. half an hour.
When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Here: 'Half-hour', a word that appears only here in the New Testament. It marks a short but noticeable stretch of time: long enough to be felt as a deliberate pause, short enough to make clear that what follows is coming soon.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.