148 



Joshua's long day. 



great battle which decided the fate of the whole of the south and 

 centre of Canaan, Joshua felt that not only were the Israelites his 

 to command, but the greatest and most exalted objects of nature 

 were so as well. " Sun, be thou dumb upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, 

 in the valley of Aijalon." And the Lord was well pleased with the 

 faith and courage of His servant, and fulfilled his command. " There 

 was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened 

 unto the voice of a man : for the Lord fought for Israel." 



Note. — It lies aside from the main subject of the above paper, but it 

 may give an unsuspected illustration of the definiteness of the relative 

 apparent movements of the heavenly bodies to note that Joshua's descrip- 

 tion of the positions of the sun and moon carries with it the implication 

 that in the year of the events under our consideration, Tammuz, the 

 fourth month of the Jewish calendar, coincided, almost exactly, Avith July 

 of our present calendar. {See p. 132, lines 8 and 9.) 



As the Mosaic calendar had a double relation, being based partly upon 

 the natural year, it followed — as twelve such months were eleven days 

 short of a complete year — that it was necessary to intercalate a thirteenth 

 month occasionally ; such intercalation being introduced in seven years 

 out of every nineteen. Thus the months of the Jewish year vibrate to 

 and fro with respect to the months of our calendar, which is based on the 

 solar tropical year. 



But if Joshua's great victory had been gained at midsummer, on the 

 day of the solstice, then since the moon was just about to set when the 

 sun was on the meridian, " in the midst of heaven," the former must have 

 been close to the point in the heavens of the spring equinox, and could 

 not have set over the valley of Aijalon, but must have set due west. If we 

 assume any date for the battle before the solstice, then the moon would 

 have set south of west ; only if the battle took place after the solstice 

 could the moon have set north of west, and not until the solstice 

 was past by a full month could the moon have set over the vaUey of 

 Aijalon. The battle must have taken place, therefore, about the 22nd or 

 23rd of July as well as about the 21st or 22nd of Tammuz. 



