Opse, Opsia, and Hespera

Many readers of Matthew 28:1 have been taught that opse ὀψέ op-seh' means evening, and that Matthew is therefore speaking of the evening after a sabbath had ended. To test that, we need to look at every word in the New Testament that English Bibles translate as evening. There are three of them: opse three times, opsia fifteen times (fourteen in the form opsias, and once as opsia), and hespera ἑσπέρα hes-per'-ah three times.

Opse and opsias come from the same root. Hespera is a different word altogether, with a different history, and it must not be confused with the other two.

A Day Lived by Sunlight

Before we read the verses, picture the world in which they were written. There was no electric light in first-century Israel and no lamp in the street, only small clay lamps indoors that burned olive oil and gave a little light. The Roman poet Juvenal, writing in that age, spoke of going home at night with only the moon or the short light of a candle to guide him.

In such a world, life followed the sun. People rose early, worked while the sun was up, and wound down their work as the sun declined. The latter part of the day was not a sharp line at sunset. It was a stretch of time, running through the afternoon to the turning of evening. That is the setting of most of the verses in which the word opsias appears.

All Fourteen Places of Opsias

Here are the fourteen places where opsias is used, with what was happening in each:

In every one of these, opsias is the latter part of the day as people watched the light, the afternoon running to the turning of evening. None of them makes it wait until the sun has fully gone down. Where Mark wants the sun’s setting, he adds it in words of its own (Mark 1:32).

Look at a few. The disciples want the crowds sent away “so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves” (Matthew 14:15). That makes sense only while there is still light to travel and still a place to buy. The master of the vineyard pays his workers when opsia has come (Matthew 20:8). The wages were settled at the close of the working day, while the sun was still up. Yeshua says, “Let us go over to the other side” (Mark 4:35), and a boat sets out on the sea, as boats set out while there is light to steer by.

Then there is the red sky:

Matthew 16:2 But He answered and said to them: "When opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening) comes, you say: 'Fair weather, for the sky is red.'

A sky that can be read for tomorrow’s weather is still full of the color of the sun going down, and opsias here is the time when that color can be seen.

The Decisive Verse

One verse settles the question.

Mark 1:32 When opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening) came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon(individual evil spirit to be expelled)-possessed.

In Greek it reads opsias de genomenes, hote edu ho helios: when opsia came, when the sun set. The YLV renders the second clause “after the sun had set.” Mark does not let opsia tell the time by itself. He adds a second marker, the setting of the sun.

If opsias already meant the time after sunset, the second clause would only repeat the first. But if opsias means the latter part of the day, running from the afternoon to the turning of evening, Mark’s sentence is natural and exact: the late part of the day had come and was turning into evening, and the sun had gone down. The setting of the sun is not opsias itself. It is the sign that evening, and with it a new day, had come.

The Same Day

Two more verses on the list show that opsias is the latter part of a day still running, not a time after the day has ended. Mark says of the afternoon of the crucifixion, in a verse we read in Chapter 24 (Mark 15:42), that it was “already opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening),” and it was still “the preparation day — that is, the day before the sabbaton(sabbath).” And John says of the day of the resurrection:

John 20:19 So when it was opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening) on the same one of the sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23), and when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Yeshua came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Eirene(Peace) be with you."

John writes, “when it was opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening) on the same one of the sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23).” He does not move to a new day when opsia comes. He calls it the same one of the sabbatons. In both verses, opsia is the latter part of the day that is still running.

The fifteenth place, where the word stands in the form opsia, is John 6:16. There the disciples go down to the sea when opsia has come, get into a boat, and only later, out on the water, “it had already become dark” (John 6:17). The pattern holds there too.

Opsia in the Week of the Cross

Two verses on the list fall in the week of the cross. Matthew writes, “When opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening) came, He was reclining at table with the twelve disciples” (Matthew 26:20). The latter part of the twelfth had come and was turning into evening; with that evening the thirteenth began, and the supper was eaten at its opening. Then Matthew writes, “When it was opsia(the latter part of the day, afternoon~early evening), there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph” (Matthew 27:57). That was the late afternoon of the thirteenth, the preparation day, and the burial was finished before the evening that opened the fourteenth. The same word marks the latter part of two different days. In both, the work belonged to the daytime, and the new day came with the evening.

Hespera, a Different Word

Luke 24:29 But they urged Him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is getting toward hespera(evening) and the day is now nearly over." So He went in to stay with them.

Acts 4:3 And they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already hespera(evening).

Acts 28:23 When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Yeshua, from both the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until hespera(evening).

These are the three places where hespera appears. “Stay with us, for it is getting toward hespera(evening) and the day is now nearly over,” say the two disciples on the road. The council holds the apostles “until the next day, for it was already hespera(evening).” Paul speaks “from morning until hespera(evening).” Hespera is the plain word for evening. It does not come from the root of opse and opsias, and it must be kept apart from them.

Two Settings, Two Uses

There are, then, two settings in which these words are used. The first is the rhythm of daily life. There opse and opsias mean the latter part of the day, the afternoon into the turning of evening, as in Mark 11:19 and the fourteen verses above.

The second is the reckoning of the appointed times. That is the setting of Matthew 28:1. There sabbaton is not a single day but the run of festival days that followed the day of preparation, and opse means the latter part of that run, still within it. In both settings the word means the same thing: the latter part of a period, while one is still inside it.

The confusion comes when the two settings are mixed. A reader who takes opsias in daily life to mean after sunset will read opse in Matthew 28:1 as after the sabbath. A reader who forgets the festival reckoning will shrink Matthew’s careful words into an afternoon. Neither is what the text says.

The biblical day runs in one order: evening, night, dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, and then the next evening, which begins a new day. Within one day, evening comes only once, at its beginning. A day does not end at evening; when evening comes, a new day has begun.

Matthew placed the resurrection at the far end of the sabbatons, as the light rose toward the day of the first sheaf. The Torah gave that day its own name and its own offering, and Paul used its name for the risen Messiah. The next chapter turns to the day after the sabbath.