Late; feminine (as noun) afternoon (early eve) or nightfall (later eve)
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The Greek adjective opsios means late and, when used substantivally, refers to evening or nightfall. In the Gospels it marks ordinary transitions in a day: crowds arrive after sunset, disciples face a lake crossing, workers receive wages, Jesus shares a meal, Joseph of Arimathea seeks Jesus's body, and the risen Jesus comes to fearful disciples behind locked doors.
Reader summary
Full entry for ὄψιος (G3798) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek adjective opsios means late and, when used substantivally, refers to evening or nightfall. In the Gospels it marks ordinary transitions in a day: crowds arrive after sunset, disciples face a lake crossing, workers receive wages, Jesus shares a meal, Joseph of Arimathea seeks Jesus's body, and the risen Jesus comes to fearful disciples behind.
The BSB source-word alignment has 14 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include evening (11), evening came (1), That evening (1), When evening (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 8:16. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (7), Mark (5), John (2).
The Greek adjective opsios means late and, when used substantivally, refers to evening or nightfall. In the Gospels it marks ordinary transitions in a day: crowds arrive after sunset, disciples face a lake crossing, workers receive wages, Jesus shares a meal, Joseph of Arimathea seeks Jesus's body, and the risen Jesus comes to fearful disciples behind locked doors.
The time marker can shape urgency and sequence without carrying one symbolic meaning. Mark can specify evening after sunset in a Sabbath setting, and another evening begins the burial period before the Sabbath. John locates Jesus's resurrection appearance on the evening of the first day. Readers should not automatically make evening represent spiritual darkness, the end times, danger, or divine absence.
Its narrative significance comes from what happens at that time. The term supports chronology and atmosphere but does not provide a biblical method for omens, date setting, or assigning moral value to a part of the day.
Opsios marks late-day and evening scenes across healing, travel, prayer, parable, meal, burial, fear, and resurrection appearance, functioning primarily as a concrete narrative time reference.
That evening, after sunset, people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed,
After sunset that evening, people bring the sick and demon-possessed to Jesus following the Sabbath-day events in Capernaum.
When that evening came, He said to His disciples, “Let us cross to the other side.”
Evening establishes when Jesus directs the disciples to cross the lake before the storm unfolds during their journey.
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and moving on to the first.’
At evening the vineyard owner orders the foreman to call the workers and pay them, moving the parable toward its reversal.
Now it was already evening. Since it was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath),
Evening on Preparation Day creates urgency for Joseph of Arimathea to request and bury Jesus's body before the Sabbath.
It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them.
On resurrection day's evening, Jesus stands among disciples behind locked doors and speaks peace into their fear.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Denotes evening/nightfall specifically; often marks pivotal narrative moments in Gospel accounts of Jesus's ministry.
Denotes evening/nightfall specifically; often marks pivotal narrative moments in Gospel accounts of Jesus's ministry.
(ὀψέ), late: ἡ ὥρα, Mrk.11:11 (Rec., WH, mg.). In late writers, ἡ ὀψία (sc. ὥρα), as subst., evening [in LXX: Jdth.13:1*]: Mat.8:16 14:15, 23 16:2 20:8 26:20 27:57, Mrk.1:32 4:35 6:47 14:17 15:42, Jhn.6:16 20:10.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
15 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
ὄψιος is built from this root:
Opsios helps the Gospel narratives move through the hours of embodied life. Evening can mean that Sabbath restrictions have passed and people bring the suffering to Jesus. It can begin a dangerous crossing, close a vineyard workday, create burial urgency before Sabbath, or hold frightened disciples behind locked doors. The same time of day contains healing, storm, payment, death care, fear, and resurrection peace.
That variety is precisely why the word should not be assigned one spiritual code. Evening matters because people are tired, schedules change, visibility falls, customs take effect, and decisions cannot always wait. In John 20, the locked doors reflect the disciples' fear within a Jewish narrative world; the phrase must not become hostility toward Jewish people.
Jesus's arrival speaks peace and commissions witnesses. Responsible teaching lets chronology, setting, and action work together and refuses to use a familiar time marker for superstition, fearmongering, or end-times calculation.
John.20.19
Opsios is a Greek adjective meaning late and often appears with an implied word for hour, functioning as the noun evening. Gospel contexts can distinguish the approach of evening, evening after sunset, and a later evening scene. Translation should follow the narrated temporal sequence rather than impose a fixed clock time.
Biblical days often use morning and evening to mark work, worship, danger, lament, and renewed mercy. Revelation uses evening-like darkness in some images, but those visions do not turn every Gospel evening into apocalyptic symbolism. Jesus's resurrection presence demonstrates hope without making nightfall a prediction mechanism.