Joshua 10:14

14 non fuit ante et postea tam longa dies oboediente Domino voci hominis et pugnante pro Israhel

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 tunc locutus est Iosue Domino in die qua tradidit Amorreum in conspectu filiorum Israhel dixitque coram eis sol contra Gabaon ne movearis et luna contra vallem Ahialon
13 steteruntque sol et luna donec ulcisceretur se gens de inimicis suis nonne scriptum est hoc in libro Iustorum stetit itaque sol in medio caeli et non festinavit occumbere spatio unius diei
14 non fuit ante et postea tam longa dies oboediente Domino voci hominis et pugnante pro Israhel
15 reversusque est Iosue cum omni Israhel in castra Galgalae
16 fugerant enim quinque reges et se absconderant in spelunca urbis Maceda
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.