He Ordered the SUN to Stop Mid-Battle — and the Sky Obeyed for Almost a Whole Day | Joshua

Before dawn, a general in his eighties climbed a rocky slope in the dark, no torches lit, leading an army that had marched all night. At dawn, he would make the boldest request ever recorded in Scripture: speaking directly to the sun and the moon in the middle of a battle — and the account says the sky obeyed for almost a whole day.

This is the story of Joshua: the boy named Hoshea who became a general, the crossing of a flooded Jordan River, the encounter with the commander of the LORD's army, the fall of Jericho, Achan's hidden sin, the deception of the Gibeonites, the night march to save a people who had just deceived Israel, hail that struck only the enemy, the day the sun stood still over Gibeon, and the death certificate an Egyptian pharaoh carved in stone for the very people who, three thousand years later, still exist.

In this episode: Moses appointing Joshua and the scouting of the promised land, the miraculous crossing of the Jordan at flood stage, the twelve spies and the generation lost in the wilderness, the fall of Jericho and the rescue of Rahab, Achan's sin and the second battle of Ai, the altar on Mount Ebal, the Gibeonites' deception disguised as distant travelers, the alliance of five Canaanite kings against Gibeon, Joshua's night march and the hailstorm from the sky, the moment the sun and moon stand still in the sky before the whole nation, the execution of the five kings in the cave at Makkedah, the fall of Hazor and the end of the conquest, and Joshua's final speech at Shechem.

The story rests on real findings: the site of Tel Gibeon (el-Jib), where archaeologist James Pritchard found thirty-one jar handles inscribed with the name “Gibeon” in Hebrew; the thirteenth-century-BC fire destruction layer excavated at Hazor by archaeologists Yigael Yadin and Amnon Ben-Tor; the Merneptah Stele, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the oldest text outside the Bible to mention the name Israel; the Amarna letters, in which Canaanite kings beg Egypt for help against invaders called the Habiru; and a 2017 study by two Cambridge researchers that calculated a solar eclipse visible from Canaan in 1207 BC — a historical curiosity, not proof, since the biblical text still states, without ambiguity, that the sun stood still.

Bible in Stories — biblical accounts told with the care of a documentary and the respect Scripture deserves.

PHOTO CREDITS (Wikimedia Commons): Photo: Jordan River — Bill Rice, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Joshua's Altar 30 — Hoshvilim, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Altar of Mount Ebal - panoramio — Elad Tzur, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: The Pool of Gibeon — Natritmeyer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Gibeon well 06 — Ar2332, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Tel-Hazor-1997 — Bukvoed, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Kairo Museum Merenptah-Stele 01 — Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Closeup of the Merenptah Stele, mentioning ysrỉꜣr ("Israel") — Darer101, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Amarna letter mp3h8878 — Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Ajalon Panorama1 — MathKnight / Ori~, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Photo: Annular eclipse "ring of fire" — Kevin Baird, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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