144 



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



but both are also used with the wider meaning of " leave ofE what 

 you are doing," whatever that might be. 



Whatever the action from which the sun was ordered to " cease," 

 that order was given, and it took effect at noon, as we learn by 

 collating verses 12 and 13 : " Sun, be thou dumb upon Gibeon. . . 

 So the sun ceased (to speak) in the midst of heaven, and hasted 

 not to go down about a whole day." In other words, when Joshua 

 spoke, the sun was overhead both to him and to Gibeon, and the 

 time was noon.* As the length of the summer day in the latitude of 

 Gibeon is fourteen hours, and as the Israelites had started from Gilgal 

 the previous evening, for they " went up from Gilgal all night," when 

 Joshua spoke they had been on foot for seventeen hours — marching, 

 climbing the mountains, and fighting — and there were still seven 

 hours of daylight before the sun was due to set. For seven hours, 

 from its rising, the sun had been climbing up the sky to its culmina- 

 tion ; for seven hours it would have to go down to its setting. If 

 the command to the sun, Be dumb," meant that it was to cease 

 its apparent motion, and " to stand still " in the sky, that " standing 

 still " must have been in the zenith, not on the western horizon ; it 

 must have taken place at noon, and not just as the sun was about 

 to set. 



Some commentators have treated the expression " hasted not to 

 go down " as if it meant " stood absolutely stiU and did not go 

 down at all." Such a paraphrase is unwarrantable ; the sun's 

 ordinary movement across the sky is the outcome of the smoothest 

 and most regular motion that we know — the rotation of the earth 

 on its axis. Any change in that motion is contrary to our experi- 

 ence. To hasten in that motion would be to go more quickly than 

 is usual; " to haste not" does not mean to stand still, but to go 

 more slowly than usual. " To go down " means movement in either 

 case : quick, if the sun " hasted " ; slow, if the sun " hasted not." 



The question of interpretation comes, then, to a very narrow point. 

 The sun was ordered to cease from one of two activities — from 

 moving or from shining. Which was it ? The moving does not 

 belong to the sun, it belongs to the earth, to which no command was 

 addressed. The shining does belong to the sun and is its great 

 function. 



* See Dean Stanley's Si7iai and Palestine, pp. 207, 214. 



