ervant who "earnestly desireth the
shadow;" that is to say, the intimation, from the length of his own
shadow, that his day's work was done; and Jeremiah says, "The shadows of
the evening are stretched out." Then came sundown, and the remaining
part of the evening is described in Proverbs: "In the twilight, in the
evening, in the black and dark night."

In a country like Palestine, near the tropics, with the days not
differing extravagantly in length from one part of the year to another,
and the sun generally bright and shining, and throwing intense shadows,
it was easy, even for the uneducated, to learn to tell the time of day
from the length of the shadow. Here, in our northern latitude, the
problem is a more complex one, yet we learn from the _Canterbury Tales_,
that Englishmen in the time of the Plantagenets could read the position
of the sun with quite sufficient accuracy for ordinary purposes. Thus
the host of the Tabard inn, though not a learned man--

"Saw wel, that the brighte sonne
The ark of his artificial day had ronne
The fourthe part, and half an houre and more;
And though he was not depe experte in lore,
He wiste it was the eighte and twenty day
Of April, that is messager to May;
And saw wel that the shadow of every tree
Was as in lengthe of the same quantitee
That was the body erect, that caused it;
And therfore by the shadow he toke his wit,
That Phebus, which that shone so clere and bright,
Degrees was five and fourty clombe on hight;
And for that day, as in that latitude,
It was ten of the clok, he gan conclude."[277:1]

In the latter part of the day there is an expression used several times
in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers "between the two evenings" which has
given rise to much controversy. The lamb of the Passover was killed in
this period; so also was the lamb of the first year offered daily at the
evening sacrifice; and day by day Aaron was then commanded to light the
seven lamps and burn incense. It is also mentioned once, in no
connection with the evening sacrifice, when the Lord sent quails to the
children of Israel saying, "At even (between the two evenings) ye shall
eat flesh." In Deuteronomy, where a command is again given concerning
the Passover, it is explained that it is "at even, at the going down of
the sun." The Samaritans, the Karaite Jews, and Aben Ezra held "the two
evenings" to be the interval betwee