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Jos 10:1-15 Now it came about when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai, and had utterly destroyed it (just as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king), and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were within their land,
2 that he feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. 3 Therefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent word to Hoham king of Hebron and to Piram king of Jarmuth and to Japhia king of Lachish and to Debir king of Eglon, saying,
4 "Come up to me and help me, and let us attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the sons of Israel." 5 So the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered together and went up, they with all their armies, and camped by Gibeon and fought against it.
6 Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, saying, "Do not abandon your servants; come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites that live in the hill country have assembled against us." 7 So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him and all the valiant warriors.
8 The LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you." 9 So Joshua came upon them suddenly by marching all night from Gilgal. 10 And the LORD confounded them before Israel, and He slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and pursued them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah.
11 As they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-horon, the LORD threw large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the sons of Israel killed with the sword.
12 Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon."
13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
14 There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel. 15 Then Joshua and all Israel with him returned to the camp to Gilgal.
O sun, stand still … Three Questions
It’s a miracle! What is a miracle? “A miracle is a humanly impossible event that occurs in the natural realm apart from natural causes for the glory of God.” – Charles Swindoll–
“Biblical miracles, in contrast to miracle stories in pagan literature and those of other religions, were never capricious or fantastic. They were not scattered helter-skelter through the record without rhyme or reason. There was always clear order and purpose to them.” – Paul Little –
Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe; the works [miracles] that I do in My Father's name, these testify of Me.
It’s a miracle! Can we believe in the miracles of the Bible? Paul Little, --many people, some of them Christians, think that miracles in the Bible are just, “…quaint ways of conveying spiritual truth, and are not meant to be taken literally.”
“The mind which asks for a non-miraculous Christianity is a mind in process of relapsing from Christianity into mere ‘religion.’ All the essentials of Hinduism would, I think remain unimpaired if you subtracted the miraculous, and the same is almost true of Mohammadanism, but you cannot do that with Christianity. It is precisely the story of a great miracle. A naturalistic Christianity leaves out all that is specifically Christian.” – C. S. Lewis –
The Chinese during the reign of Emperor Yeo report the strange occurrence of an extra long day. Herodotus, a Greek historian in Egypt, wrote an account of an extra long day. The Aztecs in Mexico report the sun standing still in a year denoted as 7 Rabbits. Other cultures: Incas of Peru, Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Polynesians. Some refer to the sun standing still; others call it an extra long day / night. (The sun doesn’t shine everywhere at once!)
Luke 18:27 But He said, "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God."
It’s a miracle! Is the Bible in conflict with science? What is described here as "the sun standing still” in Joshua 10 (1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5) led many to conclude in the past that the solar system was geocentric rather than heliocentric.
In 1633, the famous trial of Galileo Galilei took place. It was a conflict between the world of emerging science and the Catholic church. Galileo was rebuked by the Catholic church and placed under house arrest. Ten cardinals found him guilty and forbade him to teach his views, ordering that his book, the Dialogue, be prohibited. Galileo spent the last eight years alone and, eventually totally blind. He died in 1642.
The Scripture isn't giving us a specific scientific statement here in Joshua 10. It's the language of phenomenon! The Bible writers are writing history using colloquial expressions. They are not writing scientific manuals for a physics class. The same could be said of a contemporary educated weatherman saying’ “the sun will rise tomorrow at 6:23am.”
"Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” –C. S. Lewis, Miracles –
1Co 15:13-14 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.
Jer 32:27 "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?"
