When the Sun Stood Still
The Miracle of Extra Sunlight in Joshua 10
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We know that the Bible reports miracles. God parts the Red Sea for the Israelites, he causes water to flow from a rock, he gives manna every morning for forty years, and the wonders keep going. Though Moses died, God continued working wonders under Joshua’s leadership.
In Joshua 10, the sun and moon stood still.
Here’s what happened. The Israelites traveled all night to defend the Gibeonites against an attack from five Amorite armies (Josh. 10:5–10). On the day of this battle, Joshua prayed to the Lord and said, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon” (10:12).
Joshua may have referenced both the sun and moon because both were visible in the sky, a sight which suggests a certain time of day. And if the sun stands still at Gibeon and the moon stands still in the Valley of Aijalon, the sun would be in the east and the moon in the west.
Joshua’s prayer, then, was in the early morning. He prayed for certain conditions that would help the Israelites accomplish victory over the five Amorite kings and the Amorite armies. The biblical author tells us God’s answer: the sun stood still, and the moon stopped (Josh. 10:13). Indeed, “The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day” (10:13).
Some interpreters think the prayer in 10:12 is all poetic and doesn’t correspond to an actual objective event in the heavens. They cite places in the Psalms or the prophets where a biblical author employs cosmic imagery in figurative ways. While cosmic imagery can certainly be used in a poetic and nonliteral fashion, the biblical author’s comments in 10:13 fit best with interpreting the language as a historical event, a miracle. The “purely figurative” view would be stronger if we didn’t have the words in 10:13. But because the biblical author says “the sun stood still, and the moon stopped” and the sun “stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day” (10:13), the comment indicates that Joshua’s prayer 10:12 wasn’t a figurative request.
Joshua really was praying for a miraculous provision of certain battle conditions. But what were these desired conditions?
A minority of interpreters (like Dale Ralph Davis, for instance) think Joshua prayed for prolonged darkness, and so the miracle was a longer night to secure victory through a surprise attack against the Amorite armies. Such interpreters point to the fact that Joshua and the Israelites traveled all night to Gibeon for the battle (10:9). The travel, then, was in the darkness of night. And Joshua (these interpreters suggest) prayed for God to stop the sun from shining and the moon from leaving. The prayer was prolonged darkness until the battle was complete.
Though this view still acknowledges the miraculous hand of God in response to Joshua’s prayer, the language in 10:13 undermines the “prolonged darkness” view. The biblical author says that the “sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day” (10:13). The impression of that comment is that the light—rather than the darkness—was prolonged. The stopping of the sun “in the midst of heaven” doesn’t evoke the image of darkness.
The traditional view of 10:12–13 is that God performed a miracle by prolonging the length of daylight. I think this is the most natural way of reading the text. When readers inquire about orbit and axis and rotation, they’re asking questions the biblical author doesn’t address. These verses (10:12–13) are asserting a miracle. Something extraordinary took place. God caused sunlight to last longer, so that Joshua and the Israelites could complete their warfare against the Amorite armies.
Contemporary worldviews in Joshua’s day would view the sun and the moon as gods to be worshiped. But the sun and moon aren’t gods. The true and living God created them in Genesis 1, and they do his bidding.
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People who are skeptical always want to know how it was done. They want physics and geometry and science. But they forget that Joshua asked for a miracle, which by definition is unscientific, beyond our ability to explain in human terms. God did something spectacular and unthinkable. He showed His power over his creation, even over time. Its glory, which goes to God, is that it is thoroughly wondrous and powerful. God can do the impossible.