U6 



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



is done in the chapter itself. Verse 10 brings the Israelites to 

 3Iakkedah, where they were at the going down of the sun, while 

 verse 13, which chronicles Joshua's command, shows that he was 

 then at Gibeon, at noon ; that is, it records the earlier event after 

 the later. This preference for a logical, rather than a chronological, 

 order is characteristic of many Hebrew narratives.* Further, we are 

 expressly told that these verses, 12 and 13, are extracted from 

 another authority, the Book of Jasher ; and it is clear that the 

 extract has been inserted in the most appropriate place. 



It should be noted that, whether we think that the sun stood still 

 or whether that it was veiled by cloud, it still remains that the 

 Israelites were at Gibeon at noon, and reached the end of their 

 march at Makkedah at sundown. 



It still remains also that the narrative itself gives a clear explana- 

 tion in verse 11, of the statement in verse 14 : " The Lord fought for 

 Israel." It was literally true that the Lord fought for Israel "when 

 " it came to pass that as " the Amorites " fled from before Israel, 

 and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down 

 great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died ; 

 they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the 

 children of Israel slew with the sword." 



And now we reach the sentence to which the whole narrative 

 leads up : There was no day like that, before it or after it " 

 (verse 14). It was unique. "What made it so ? Some have supposed 

 that it was the length of the day, or the greatness of the miracle. 

 That is not what the Scripture says. After all, how can we mortals 

 judge whether a miracle is great or small ? Is anything too hard 

 for the Lord Whose power is infinite ? 



That day was like none other because of this fact, that the Lord 

 hearkened unto the voice of a man." That is what the chapter 

 says ; there is no hint that it was because the sun stood still, or that 

 the day was long, or that it was a mighty miracle. Every reader of 

 Holy Scripture knows that for one person to hearken to the voice" 



* Col. Mackinlay has shown us in his book, Recent Discoveries in St. 

 Luke's Writings, how much adchtional light is thrown upon Scripture by 

 the readiness with which the sacred writers abandon the strict sequence 

 of events when a special emphasis has to be brought out. 



