10:12-15
We have to admit that this is a rather strange incident, and it is not clear what the purpose was in military terms. So let’s look at it verse by verse. First of all we are told that God gave the Amorites over to Israel. On that day Joshua prayed to the Lord, or, rather, declared, that the sun should stand still over Gibeon, and the moon over the Valley of Aijalon. Then we read that these things happened until the victory was complete. So why did Joshua want these things to happen? Was it to allow him time to complete the victory? We are then told that the sun did indeed stop in the middle of the sky, and that these things are recorded in the Book of Jashar (or which we have no manuscripts).
There are of course the usual attempts to explain away the events, but the text seems to make it clear that it did happen. Moreover, emphasis is placed on the fact that God listened to a man, and draws the conclusion that the Lord was fighting for Israel. There is a possible alternative explanation in the “Cultural Background Study Bible” (Walton and Keener) that says it could be interpreted as Joshua asking that the enemy see no omens in the sun, moon and stars, and so are discouraged. This does have the positive of interpreting things in terms of the world of more than a thousand years BC, rather than in terms of physics, and also that it would then have some military value.
Joshua then returns to Gilgal.
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