The Sun Stands Still

A frightened king. Adoni-Zedek, the king of Jerusalem, heard that Joshua had taken Jericho and Ai. Then he heard that “the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel” (10:1). A strong city. Gibeon “was a great city, like one of the royal cities,” and “all its men were mighty” (10:2). If even Gibeon had made peace with Israel, the king knew his own city was in danger. Five kings. He called the kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon. Together they “camped before Gibeon and made war against it” (10:5). They wanted to punish Gibeon for joining Israel. A cry for help. The men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua: “Do not forsake your servants; come up to us quickly, save us and help us” (10:6). Forsake means to leave someone alone in trouble. A promise to keep. Gibeon had tricked Israel. But Israel's leaders had said, “We have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel” (9:19). A promise made in God's name had to be kept. Joshua went. “So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor” (10:7). He did not wait or make excuses. What this means for you. God's people keep their word, even when it costs them something. And our God has never broken a single promise He has made to us.

Adoni-Zedek (10:1). His name means my lord is righteous. Long before, Salem had a king named Melchizedek, king of righteousness, who blessed Abram (Genesis 14:18-20). Now a king of the same city, with a name like his, gathered armies against God's people. A good name cannot make a heart right with God. Gibeon's choice (10:1-2). Gibeon was a Hivite city (9:7), large and well defended. Its people had heard what the Lord did in Egypt (9:9), and they chose to come under Israel's God instead of fighting Him. Like Rahab, they turned toward the Lord, though they came to Israel with a lie. The five kings (10:5). Verse 5 calls them “the five kings of the Amorites.” Amorite was a broad name for the peoples of the hill country. Their attack on Gibeon was really an attack on Israel and on Israel's God. The oath (9:19-20). Israel's leaders had sworn by the Lord, and they knew that breaking the oath would bring God's anger (9:20). Generations later King Saul did break it, and God sent a famine on the land (2 Samuel 21:1-2). God holds His people to their word. Psalm 15:4. The person who may live in God's presence is the one “who swears to his own hurt and does not change.” Joshua kept a costly promise. Up from Gilgal (10:7). Gilgal lay in the Jordan Valley near Jericho, far below sea level. Gibeon sat high in the hill country. So Joshua “ascended”: the army climbed a long, steep road through the dark. Why it matters. Gibeon came to Israel as an enemy asking for peace, and once received it was defended. Many Christians see a picture of the gospel here. Jesus said, “the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).

Not long before, the people of Gibeon had tricked Joshua. They pretended they came from a country far away. So Joshua made a peace promise with them. The leaders made that promise in the name of the Lord. Three days later Joshua found out the truth. But a promise made in God's name must be kept. Now Gibeon was in big trouble. Five kings were attacking the city. Gibeon cried out to Joshua for help. Joshua could have stayed home. Instead, he marched out with his whole army. He kept his word even when it was hard. Our God always keeps every promise He makes.

Gibeon needed help. Joshua had made a promise to them. So Joshua went to help them. God keeps His promises too.

God spoke first. Before the battle began, the Lord told Joshua, “Do not fear them” (10:8). God spoke to Joshua's fear before Joshua ever saw the enemy. As good as done. God said, “I have delivered them into your hand” (10:8). He spoke about the victory as if it had already happened. When God makes a promise, it is that sure. Not one. “Not a man of them shall stand before you” (10:8). Five armies had come together, but not one soldier could stand against the Lord. The same promise. At the very beginning God had told Joshua, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life” (Joshua 1:5). God was keeping His word. Faith gets up and goes. “Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal” (10:9). Joshua believed God, so he marched. Trusting God did not make him lazy. It made him brave. Courage from God. God had said, “Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). What this means for you. When you are afraid, remember a promise God has made and trust it. Then do the next right thing, knowing that He is with you.

I have given them (10:8). The Hebrew netattim (say: neh-tah-TEEM) means I have given them. God speaks of the victory as finished before the battle starts. His promise is as certain as a thing already done. Stand before you (10:8). God's words echo Joshua 1:5: “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life.” Every battle in the land was God keeping that first promise. Do not fear them. Forty years earlier, Joshua and Caleb had stood before a frightened nation at Kadesh and said, “the Lord is with us. Do not fear them” (Numbers 14:9). Now God spoke the same words back to Joshua. Numbers do not decide it. Five royal armies stood against Israel. But “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). All night (10:9). The promise did not replace the march. Joshua took God at His word and acted on it at once, climbing through the night to strike at dawn. Real faith obeys. Jesus before the cross. The night before He died, Jesus said, “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Like God's word to Joshua, He spoke of the victory as already won. Fear and faith. “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You” (Psalm 56:3). Courage is not the absence of fear. It is trusting God's word more than what you can see. Why it matters. God's promises are meant to move us, not to make us sit still. When God has spoken, the right response is to trust Him and obey.

Before the battle, God told Joshua not to be afraid. God said He had already given the enemy to Israel. God talked as if the battle was already over! That is how sure God's promises are. Joshua believed God. But he did not just sit and wait. He and his army marched all night long. Trusting God and obeying God go together. Forty years before, Joshua had told the people not to fear. Now God said the same thing to him. God knew Joshua needed to hear it again. When God gives you a job, He gives you courage too.

God said, “Do not fear them.” God was with Joshua. So Joshua was brave. God is with you too.

Panic. “So the Lord routed them before Israel” (10:10). Routed means He threw their armies into panic, so they turned and ran. Down the mountain. Israel chased them “along the road that goes to Beth Horon” (10:10). This road ran steeply down from the hills toward the valley. Stones of ice. As they fled, “the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Azekah” (10:11). Who won? “There were more who died from the hailstones than the children of Israel killed with the sword” (10:11). Israel's soldiers fought hard, but the real Warrior that day was the Lord. An old promise. At the Red Sea, Moses had told Israel, “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace” (Exodus 14:14). The same God was still fighting for them. Why judgment? Hundreds of years earlier, God told Abraham his family would have to wait, “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). God was patient for more than four hundred years. Now their sin was complete, and God judged it. Mercy was offered. Rahab and the people of Gibeon turned to the Lord, and they were spared. God's judgment fell on those who kept fighting against Him. What this means for you. God is patient, and God is fair. He fights for His people, and the battles that are too big for you are not too big for Him.

Routed (10:10). The Hebrew hamam (say: hah-MAHM) means to throw into panic. The same verb is used at the Red Sea, when the Lord “troubled the army of the Egyptians” (Exodus 14:24). In the land, God was finishing the rescue He began at the exodus. The descent of Beth Horon (10:11). This pass dropped from the hill country west toward the Valley of Aijalon. It was the main road between the hills and the plain, and an army crowded onto it had nowhere to hide. Weapons from heaven (10:11). God had used hail against Egypt in the seventh plague (Exodus 9:23-25). Here He used it again, hitting the enemy and sparing Israel. All of creation is under His command. The victory was God's. More died from the hail than by Israel's swords (10:11). At the end of the whole campaign Joshua 10:42 gives the reason: “because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.” Judgment after patience (Genesis 15:16). God delayed the Amorites' judgment for more than four hundred years: “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” By Joshua's day their cities were full of idol worship, and they even offered their children to their gods (Deuteronomy 12:31). God's justice came after long patience. Mercy at the edges. Rahab (Joshua 2; Hebrews 11:31) and Gibeon (Joshua 9) show that anyone who turned to the Lord could be spared. God is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). Not a pattern for today. This was a command for one time and one land. Jesus told Peter, “Put your sword in its place” (Matthew 26:52), and Paul wrote, “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). Why it matters. The same God is patient and just. He will judge sin, and He has opened a way of mercy for everyone who turns to Him.

Who really won the battle at Gibeon? The Lord did! He made the enemy armies confused and afraid. Then He sent hailstones on them from the sky. Israel's soldiers fought hard. But the hail beat more enemies than all their swords. God was the real fighter that day. Why did God judge these cities? Their people had done evil for a very long time. God had waited hundreds of years for them to turn from it. Rahab and the people of Gibeon did turn to God. God kept them safe. God is patient, and He is always fair.

God sent big hailstones. The hail fell on the enemy. God fought for His people. God is very strong!

Joshua prayed. “Then Joshua spoke to the Lord” (10:12). Before he spoke to the sun, he spoke to God. A bold request. In front of all Israel he said, “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon” (10:12). He prayed out loud, where everyone could see whether God answered. God answered. “So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped” (10:13). The sun “did not hasten to go down for about a whole day” (10:13). God gave Israel the daylight they needed to finish the battle. Written down. These words were also written in “the Book of Jasher” (10:13). It was an old book of songs about Israel's heroes. We do not have it today, but the Bible keeps this part of it. One of a kind. “There has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man” (10:14). Heeded means listened and acted. Who rules the sky? Many people in Canaan worshiped the sun and the moon. God had warned Israel never to bow down to them (Deuteronomy 4:19). On this day the sun and moon obeyed the Lord, because He made them. The reason. “For the Lord fought for Israel” (10:14). Then “Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal” (10:15). What this means for you. Joshua's big prayer matched God's big promise. You can bring big prayers to God too, especially when you ask Him to do what He has promised.

To the Lord first (10:12). Joshua “spoke to the Lord” before he spoke to the sun. His words to the sun and moon were a prayer of faith spoken aloud, not a magic command. The power belonged to God alone. Stand still (10:12). The Hebrew dom (say: DOHM) means be still or be silent. Joshua asked God to hold the sun in place over Gibeon until the work was done. The Book of Jasher (10:13). Sefer haYashar (say: SAY-fer hah-yah-SHAR) means the Book of the Upright. It was a collection of Israel's songs. 2 Samuel 1:18 names it again for David's song over Saul and Jonathan. The poetry in 10:12-13 comes from that book. How? God has not told us how He held back the sun. He has told us that He did it. The Son of God is “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3), and “in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). The One who holds creation together can do with it whatever He wills. Heeded the voice of a man (10:14). The greatest wonder is that the Lord of heaven listened to a man. “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). Sun and moon. The peoples of Canaan bowed to the sun and moon as gods, and Deuteronomy 4:19 warned Israel not to worship them. Over Gibeon both stood still at the word of Israel's God. The Lord fought (10:14, 42). The battle report ends with the reason: “the Lord fought for Israel.” Joshua 10:42 repeats it at the close of the southern campaign. Gilgal (10:15), where Israel had been circumcised and kept the Passover (Joshua 5), was their home base. Why it matters. Bold prayer grows out of God's promises. Joshua asked for daylight to finish what God had already promised in 10:8.

Joshua prayed a very big prayer in front of everyone. He asked God to make the sun stand still. And God did it! The Bible says there was never another day like it. God listened to Joshua, and He answered him. Joshua was not trying to do magic. He was asking God to keep His promise. God made the sun and the moon. They obey Him because He is in charge. Some people in that land prayed to the sun and moon. But only the Lord is God. You can pray to this same God. No prayer is too big for Him.

Joshua prayed a big prayer. He asked the sun to stand still. And it did! God hears our prayers.

The Sun Stands Still

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