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A Miraculous March, a Miraculous Victory -- a study of Joshua 10:6-14

  • Writer: mww
    mww
  • Dec 15, 2016
  • 15 min read

God expects you to be true to your word. He’ll help you do it, too.


Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Joshua 10:6-14

I’m still torn in two directions: you can focus your time on God’s power to intervene on behalf of His people (in which case talk about God’s various miracles), or you can focus on Joshua’s responsibility to keep his word to the Gibeonites (in which case focus on personal responsibility). I think it would be hard to do both in one short sitting.

Do not be afraid of them, for I have handed them over to you. (10:8)

Getting Started: Things to Think About

Awkward Alliances. 

I keep up with sports because I find them to be a fun distraction from real news. Plus, they give me all sorts of fascinating social dynamics to evaluate, particularly the awkward alliance. (1) A team trades a player to another team. Some nasty things are said. Then the player fails his physical and has to return to the old team. (2) A player makes some disparaging comments about another team’s player or coach. Then the player gets traded to that team. (3) A player plays in a fierce rivalry for many years. Then, late in his career, he switches teams because the other team offers a bigger contract. (Granted, that last example is more about the awkward alliance between a player and the fans, but you get the drift.) (There are some really, really fun “politics makes strange bedfellows” illustrations you could use if that’s more your flavor.)


Have you ever been in such a relationship? A “we have to work together, but I don’t like it” situation? It can happen on church committees, civic clubs, booster clubs, political campaigns, school projects and more. What’s that like? Can you set aside your differences to honor a commitment? The Israelites had been deceived by the Gibeonites, but they knew their word was their bond. Have we ever failed to honor our word because we didn’t like the person we were supposed to help?


Amazing Newspaper Headlines.

Thinking that this could be a fun attention-getter, I googled “Amazing Newspaper Headlines”. Something I would recommend as a group activity would be to write headlines of what we read in this week’s passage (have a contest to see who can write the best headlines)—do that toward the end of group time, by the way, not as an icebreaker. But, the Google search just brought up a bunch of really funny things, like “Attorney Sues Himself” and “Camouflaged Vehicle Goes Missing” and “Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons” and “Fish Need Water”. Yep, those are amazing headlines, all right. So I switched to “Miraculous Newspaper Headlines”. Nope, that didn’t help. I’m really not sure how to help you with my idea, so here it is: when was the last time you heard of something miraculous happening near you? Can you still describe the event and how it made you feel? What happened when you told someone else about it?


Here would be the point: if something as dramatic as the events of Joshua 10 happened today, it would get a lot of attention. My guess is it would be very encouraging to the faithful, and terrifying to God’s enemies. How do you think the press would cover the story? How would you cover the story?


A final challenge for your group would be to come up with a way to connect this amazing story with the gospel. Obviously you wouldn’t do this as an icebreaker, but I’m out of space inside, so I’m just suggesting it here for your future reference.

The Larger Context of Joshua

The battle for Jericho was just the beginning of the much larger campaign of claiming the Promised Land for God’s people. The maps below show you one man’s understanding of where the major named cities were. Those locations are far from indisputable (archeologists have not found expected ruins at each site), but I think they’re close enough to give you a sense of what Joshua’s plan was. Following the disastrous defeat at Ai (you might remember from the Joshua video how the author juxtaposed the blessing of obedience with the cost of disobedience throughout the book) and the price paid in the stoning of Achan and his family, the newly repentant armies of Joshua overwhelm that little outpost.


The next step of Joshua’s plan was to clear out their enemies in central Canaan. As they are about to do so, they receive a delegation from the Gibeonites who (by wearing worn-out clothing and carrying crusty bread) convince Joshua that they are a far-away people looking for preemptive peace. The author of Joshua makes it clear that the Israelites did not ask God what they should but instead made the peace treaty. As you can see on the map, Gibeon is right in the middle of the area they were about to attack! God commands them to uphold the peace treaty. Then, in our passage this week, Gibeon’s neighbors form an alliance to attack it in retaliation. Gibeon calls on Joshua for help, which he answers.


In the chapters following, we see the Israelites defeat the coalition against Gibeon (they Take. Them. Out. in a way that might seem brutal, but we have to remember that this is a holy war) and then move against the cities further south. They return to their base at Gilgal and then move north to take those cities. You see in 10:40 and 11:21 that Joshua killed everyone who lived in those regions. You can read this as hyperbole (as the video does) or you can read this in the lens of 11:20 which says that the people’s hearts were hardened against the Israelites and no one wanted a peace treaty with them. In other words, as is common in holy war, the local people were willing to fight to the death. We don’t understand that here, but it very well could be the case.


We only have two more lessons from Joshua (next week is the Christmas story), which means that you guys have to skip the chapters of the division of the land. Chapter 14 is short and very interesting, 19:49-51 is gratifying, and chapter 20 is very culturally important, so you might want to be familiar with them and give a summary to your group. Again—use that video to help you with the main themes of the book.



This Week's Big Idea: The Elephant in the Room

The elephant in the room in this chapter is the idea of the sun standing still in the sky for a day. I’m not just surprised but shocked that the leader materials just kind of gloss over that. I understand that there are some things we just have to take on faith (you might be impressed to see this conclusion from snopes.com, the internet rumor checker: “If the sun once really did stand still for a day, the best evidence we'd have for proving it would be the accounts of people who saw it happen. That is what the Bible is said to offer. Some people accept that as sufficient proof, and others don't.”), but this particular passage has been a hotbed for people who deny the validity of the Bible.


One thing that naysayers say is that the sun doesn’t “stand still” but the earth rotates, therefore the Bible authors are idiots. Ignore them. We all understand that from the perspective of a person on the earth, the sun moves across the sky. So what could possibly have happened?


(1) God stopped or slowed the rotation of the earth for 12-24 hours. This is the option that most people have in their heads, but it’s a doozy. Obviously, if the earth actually stopped rotating, it would devastate the tides, the magnetosphere, plate tectonics, and mess with gravity (a little bit). Furthermore, it would affect every part of the world. Could God handle all of those variables? Of course. And, adding to the fun, there is the Greek myth of Phaeton who disrupted the sun for a day, and there are myths in New Zealand and Mexico about a long night. Could those be based on an actual occurrence? There are also possible stories of a long day in Egyptian and Chinese records.


(2) God caused a wobble in the earth’s axis keeping the sun above Canaan. This would be similar in idea to stopping or slowing the earth’s rotation. Obviously, God could do it, but would He interfere with the entire earth for one battle? There are two other ways of looking at this event.


(3) Refraction/Illusion. In this explanation, God simply “bent” the light of the sun so that it appeared to be mid-day. Atmospheric refraction is common, but it doesn’t last long enough to explain 24 hours. However, we know that light can be bent in space. Light literally changes direction around stars and black holes, so the mechanism is already in place for God to do this without disrupting the entire earth.


(4) And this one is the most interesting (to me). The words “stand still” is more closely related to the idea of “be still” as in “be quiet.” In other words, Joshua wasn’t asking for more sun, he was asking for less sun. This would make sense when thinking about the idea that they are in a hilly desert and have been marching for hours and have come upon the enemy camp by surprise at night, and that God has sent a massive thunderstorm with hail. Keep that thunderstorm going! Indeed, verse 11 says that the hail killed more people than the soldiers. Therefore, from their perspective, the sun and the moon simply stopped. “Stop” could mean “stop moving” or “stop working” in the sense of “stop producing light.” (And don’t forget that this could actually just be poetic and not intended to be taken literally, although in this context, it sure seems to be presented as historical fact, not poetic license.)


I personally prefer the explanation that the sun appeared to stand still in the sky. That would be easy for God to do (in heaven, God is the source of light!) and would not require interfering with the entire universe. God certainly could stop the earth, though, if He wanted to. The last option is growing on me, though, because it really does make more sense that Joshua would want the darkness to continue, both in terms of surprise, relief from heat, and the continued action of the thunderstorm. However, that doesn’t seem to take seriously enough “there has never been a day like it” (unless that was just about Joshua’s request).

 

NASA’s Missing Day

There is a favorite story floating around out there about NASA. Apparently, the NASA scientists were calibrating their instruments by tracking the positions of various stars, and as they were running their computer back and forth through the centuries, it ground to a halt in 1400 BC when they found out they were missing 23 hours and 20 minutes from their star calendars. The Christian workers immediately knew what had happened (Joshua 10), but they were mystified by the extra 40 minutes. But then the Christians remembered the story of Hezekiah and Isaiah in 2 Kings 20 and the shadows going backwards. Well, 10o on the sundial is exactly 40 minutes! There is the missing 24 hours, exactly as the Bible says!


As fun as that story goes, it’s a hoax. The man who first told it didn’t work in that capacity at NASA; it was a classic “fish story” that grew over time. NASA computers don’t work that way; they don’t hunt through star movements to track the passage of time (that’s impossible for our computers), and they would have no need to. There is no “master clock” to compare those movements against, and they would have no bearing on the proper functioning of astronomical equipment today.


Importantly, we are not told anything more specific than “about a day” for the event in Joshua, so searching for exactly 24 hours would be unnecessary. Furthermore, the event in question in 2 Kings doesn’t use the word “degree” to describe the movement of the sun, and we don’t exactly know what the “dial of Ahaz” was, so we cannot say with certainty it means “40 minutes”. It’s a fun story, but it’s unnecessary and false.

Part 1: A Commitment Remembered (10:6)

Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: “Don’t abandon your servants. Come quickly and save us! Help us, for all the Amorite kings living in the hill country have joined forces against us.”

I really don’t know how much background you will need to give your group on this lesson. The point of it is that Israel kept faith with the people who were not against them, and God helped them defeat their enemies. Feel free to say anything you need to say to set up the passage. One valuable point is that while Gibeon thought they were being clever, they brought war upon themselves anyway, just from their previous neighbors. You can see from the previous page that Jerusalem was one of the cities who went to war against them. Interestingly, God continued to honor the covenant with Gibeon; you might remember the famine that came on Israel when Saul murdered Gibeonites in 2 Sam 21:1.


Aside: Who Are the Gibeonites?

The city of Gibeon was very important in that day. There were very few roads connecting the Jordan River Valley with the main coastal roads between Europe and Africa, and Gibeon overlooked one of them (the Aijalon Valley). Obviously, a Gibeon alliance with Israel would be of great concern to the other cities trying to survive in the region. Interestingly, there is no evidence of the city ever having been destroyed. This amazing well was found in the city walls, meaning it had a water source in siege.


As far as the Gibeonites themselves, not much is known. They associated with the Hivites (Josh 11:19), which is not terribly helpful because that name is not used outside of the Old Testament. It is possible (but unlikely) to be a linguistic confusion with “Horite”.


Aside: Gilgal

There are 40 references to Gilgal in the Bible, although they do not have to refer to the same place. We do not know if it is a city, town, or camp, so it is difficult to evaluate the finds from the vicinity of Jericho (which is where the Gilgal in Joshua was). There are evidence of establishments literally all around Jericho. Ideally, we would find a circle of large stones (the altar built in Joshua 4), but we haven’t. The site is prominent in Joshua and Samuel, but it isn’t mentioned at all after the fall of Israel.

Part 2: Staying True to His Word (10:7-8)

So Joshua and his whole military force, including all the fighting men, came from Gilgal. The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for I have handed them over to you. Not one of them will be able to stand against you.”

This is an interesting division; it probably means the “entire army” with its “special forces”. Without telling him how, God promises Joshua victory. I would include verse 9 here because verse 9 shows the human responsibility side of God’s promises. The Israelites marched all night from Gilgal to Gibeon. It was about 20 miles. But here’s the kicker: they were marching from the river valley (about 750 below sea level) over the hill country (2400 feet above sea level) through ravines and up rock faces at night. In completely unfamiliar territory to them. I don’t think we can understand how hard and dangerous a march that was. This is where the divine intervention starts to kick in: that march should not have been possible. And then to arrive alive and immediately fight? Not a chance.


But I would guess that more than a few of your group members have stories of God sustaining them while they were keeping a promise or doing good. Responding to an emergency, disaster relief, all night in a hospital, caring for a sick family member, covering work duties for a coworker in need—doing more than they thought physically possible. I’ve learned that when you’re doing something for God, He makes it possible. Even if your promise or responsibility doesn’t seem to have anything directly to do with God, I’ve also learned that God wants us to keep our commitments. He will always help us do the right thing.

Part 3: Divine Intervention (10:9-14)

So Joshua caught them by surprise, after marching all night from Gilgal. The Lord threw them into confusion before Israel. He defeated them in a great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them through the ascent of Beth-horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah. As they fled before Israel, the Lord threw large hailstones on them from the sky along the descent of Beth-horon all the way to Azekah, and they died. More of them died from the hail than the Israelites killed with the sword. On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on its enemies. Isn’t this written in the Book of Jashar? So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed its setting almost a full day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man, because the Lord fought for Israel.

I think I’ve said everything I can about this miracle. Make sure to note that the hailstorm was more deadly than the army—the idea is that God truly fought for His people. Also, catching the Amorites by surprise is unbelievable. Did they not have scouts? It means to me that God sped the army’s force-march to near-supernatural levels. Adding to this, after an impossible march, the Israelites are now pursuing an enemy running for its life. Beth-horon was 3 miles from Gibeon; Azekah was 15 miles further; Makkedah was 5 miles beyond that. That’s 50 miles of marching at speed through mountains in 24 hours! I’ve given you everything I know about the meaning of “stand still” and “stopped”; it’s up to you to decide what to do with it in your group discussion. The language is very clear, no matter what, that something astounding happened during this time. It could either be the miracle of the sun standing still in the sky, or it could be the simple fact that God let Joshua call the shots this day. Some interesting textual notes: (1) Beth-horon was a pair of cities, one in a valley and one up the ridge. It means “house of caves”. (2) The Hebrew is somewhat vague as to who spoke to the sun, the Lord or Joshua. It would be bold for Joshua to make that command! (3) The Book of Jashar is also mentioned in 2 Sam 1:18. It, along with The Book of the Lord’s Wars (Num 21:14) seem to be early histories that the Bible authors consulted.


Whatever you take away from this passage, the lesson needs to emphasize that God intervened on behalf of His people at their request. But also note that the context of this was keeping an oath the Israelites made (foolishly) to the Gibeonites. God protects those who have asked for it, even at the risk of His own people! I took extreme notice of Joshua’s boldness in the view of all the people. There was no hiding from his audacious words. Could I be that bold? However, also note the uniqueness of the situation. The Bible itself says there has never been a day like this since! We should not expect God to answer every request for a miracle—that would make them not very miraculous.


I also was struck by the importance of the oath the Israelites took. You might remember that Isaac did not revoke his blessing on Jacob even after discovering the deceit (Gen 27).  And Jacob did not retaliate against Laban after learning of the deceit with Leah (Gen 29). Jesus Himself said that our “yes” should simply be “yes”. I’m not sure what would happen if we made a bad oath; there would probably be serious consequences. Do you stick by your word? Have you ever done something risky in defense of a friend? Talk about those two questions and see if that helps your group begin to apply the actions of Joshua to their own lives. OR ask this question: who in this group do you feel you can call on for help?

Finally, I also saw the cooperation of God and man. God did the work, but the Israelites still had to march. A dangerous one! God helped them, but they still had to go and fight. Do we fail to do our part in God’s plan hoping He’ll do it all?

Closing Thoughts: Quantum Mechanics

You might not be the least bit interested in this, but I find it fascinating. Quantum mechanics is built on the idea that at very, very tiny distances, the universe seems to operate according to different rules. It doesn’t, but we only notice these bizarre effects at very small scales. Most importantly is the “uncertainty principle” which says that we can’t know everything possible about a particle because the act of measuring it affects it. In other words, when describing the universe, we cannot speak in any absolutes. Instead, scientists speak in terms of probabilities. In other words, there is a 99% chance that such-and-such electron is in the first quanta, but there is a 1% chance that it might go to McDonalds. I know that sounds silly, but that’s kind of how it works. There is a less than 0.0001% chance that a certain particle might simply cease to be in one place and appear a centimeter away, but there is a chance that happens. Do the math and it means that there is a 1x10-69 chance that all of the molecules in your body move to Asia. We can’t comprehend those orders of magnitude, so suffice it to say that such event will never happen.


But let’s take a step back. I have some scientist acquaintances who really like to push this aspect of the universe from God’s perspective. Does Jesus need to walk on water? Done. Does Philip need to disappear? Done. Does Jesus need to walk through a wall? Done. The universe already contains the ability for these things to happen within the current set of laws, but the probabilities of those things happening are so astronomically small that they could only be called a miracle. But they would be a miracle that God could do without suspending any laws. In the case of Joshua, God could simply have had the sun’s photons change course above Canaan, even moving from the dark side of space! Or He could had had photons appear there from another star entirely. It’s all beyond me, but it’s quite fun to think about. And no less miraculous if that’s how God did it.

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