What does Mark 15:33 mean? [⇑ See verse text ⇑]

The sixth hour is noon; the ninth hour is 3:00 p.m. Jesus has been on the cross since the third hour: 9:00 a.m. (Mark 15:25). At 3:00 p.m., Jesus will die. At that same time, on the other side of the city, the priests will slaughter the lambs for the Passover meals of the people who live in Judea.

In Amos 8:9–10, God speaks of a day of judgment when the "songs of the temple shall become wailings" (Amos 8:3):

"And on that day," declares the LORD GOD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day…"

Darkness was the ninth plague God put on the Egyptians (Exodus 10:21–29). The darkness enveloped Egypt for three days; here it lasts three hours. The final plague was the first Passover, the origin of the feast celebrated this very moment. As God took the firstborns of the Egyptians to secure the rescue of His people the Israelites, God now accepts the death of His own Firstborn as a "ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).