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E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S., ON 



parties concerned — to Gibeonite, Amorite and Israelite — was the 

 need for promptitude, it can scarcely be disputed, that eleven 

 weeks is an inadmissible length of time to interpose between the 

 reading of the Law and the battle, and that seven weeks is the 

 utmost than can be allowed. 



Adopting, then, the place of the occurrence as Gibeon, noon as 

 the hour of the day, and the date as about the twenty-first day 

 of the fourth month of the Jewish calendar — corresponding that 

 year to July 22nd of our present calendar with an uncertainty 

 of one or two days on either side— the sun's declination \\'ould be 

 approximately 21° north, and at noonday it would be within 

 11° of the zenith. The sun would have risen almost exactly 

 at 5 a.m., and would set almost exactly at 7 p.m., the day being 

 14 hours long. The moon would have been in about her third 

 quarter, and in north latitude about 5°, it would have risen about 

 11 o'clock the previous night and have lighted the IsraeHtes 

 during the most difficult part of their night march ; it was now 

 at an altitude of 7°, and within half an hour of setting. The 

 conditions are not sufficient to fix the year, since from the nature 

 of the luni-solar cycle there will always be one or two years in 

 each cycle of nineteen years that will satisfy the conditions of 

 the case. The date of the Hebrew invasion of Palestine is not 

 Imown with sufficient certainty to Hmit the inquiry to any 

 particular cycle. 



At the moment when Joshua spoke, it was, therefore, midday 

 in the fullest heat of summer, and Joshua was at the gates of 

 Gibeon on the summit of the Ridge of the highland of Palestine. 

 The country was then, and is now, one of the hottest countries 

 of the world at that season. The Israelites had already been 

 seventeen hours on the march and in the battle, and had been 

 engaged in severe fighting. The Amorites had no doubt been taken 

 by surprise, and so at a disadvantage, but at least they had been 

 in action only for seven hours, not for seventeen, and therefore 

 should have been much less exhausted than the IsraeHtes. What 

 could Joshua have meant when he issued his command to the 

 sun and moon " to stand still," or, to translate his word literally, 



to be silent," " to be dumb " ? 



No man who has ever experienced the intensity of sub-tropical 

 heat can have any doubt as to the true answer. The very last 

 thing that Joshua could have wished for was that the sun that 

 was scorching his already exhausted troops should be fixed 

 overhead in the zenith and continue to pour down its pitiless 



