Joshua 10:14

14 And there was not such a day either before or after, so that God should hearken to a man, because the Lord fought on the side of Israel.

Joshua 10:14 Meaning and Commentary

Joshua 10:14

And there was no day like that, before it, or after it
Which must be understood as referring not to natural days, or such as are according to the natural course of things, as those in the northern and southern poles, which are much longer, but to miraculous and extraordinary ones: never was there such a day as this, occasioned by the sun standing still; and as for Hezekiah's day, which is objected, when the sun went ten degrees backward on the dial of Ahaz, it is not certain whether those degrees were hours, or half hours, or quarters of an hour; and if they were hours, as the going backwards was at once, in a moment, it could only make an addition of ten hours in the return of them, and so it must make but a day of twenty two hours: besides, the writer of this book only speaks of days that had been in his time, and not of what might be hereafter; add to which, that this respects not so much the length of the day, as the manner in which it became so long; and especially it regards the following circumstance, being at the entreaty of a man, and that delivered in a very authoritative manner:

that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man;
expressed in prayer, and which prayer was a prayer of faith:

for the Lord fought for Israel:
by casting hailstones upon their enemies, and preserving them from them by the stopping the course of the sun, until they had taken full vengeance on them. The day on which this miracle was wrought, is conjectured to be Wednesday the eleventh of April, in the year before Christ 1454 F14.


FOOTNOTES:

F14 Bedford's Chronology, p. 492.

Joshua 10:14 In-Context

12 Then Joshua spoke to the Lord, in the day in which the Lord delivered the Amorite into the power of Israel, when he destroyed them in Gabaon, and they were destroyed from before the children of Israel: and Joshua said, Let the sun stand over against Gabaon, and the moon over against the valley of Aelon.
13 And the sun and the moon stood still, until God executed vengeance on their enemies; and the sun stood still in the midst of heaven; it did not proceed to set till the end of one day.
14 And there was not such a day either before or after, so that God should hearken to a man, because the Lord fought on the side of Israel.
16 And these five kings fled, and hid themselves in a cave that is in Makeda.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.