Joshua 10:14

Jos 10:14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.

Ver. 14. And there was no day llke that.] No, not Hezekiah’s long day, when the sun went backward ten degrees in the dial of Ahaz. Our forefathers had a long Sunday, as they called it, when King Edgar ordained that the Sabbath should be solemnised from Saturday nine of the clock till Monday morning. {a} The Jews likewise, in sanctifying the Sabbath, used to add, de profano ad sacrum, &c.

That the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man.] So he did when at the cry of blind Bartimaeus, Jesus stood still, {Mar 10:49} that Sun of righteousness. {Mal 4:2}

{a} Act. and Mon.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jos 10:14. There was no day like that — Namely in those parts of the world in which he here speaks. Vain, therefore, is that objection, that the days are longer near the northern and southern poles, where they are constantly longer at certain seasons, and that by the order of nature; whereas the length of this day was surely contingent, and granted by God in answer to Joshua’s prayer. The Lord hearkened to a man — Namely, in such a manner as to alter the course of nature, that a man might have more time to pursue and destroy his enemies. The Lord fought — This is added as the reason why God was so ready to answer Joshua’s petition, because he was resolved to fight for Israel, and that in a more than ordinary manner. We may observe here how remarkably pertinent both the miracle of the hailstones, and this of the sun’s being arrested in his course, were to the circumstances of the persons concerned in them. All nations had at this time their several tutelar deities, to whose protection they committed themselves and their country, and to whose power they imputed their successes in war. Now, the three principal deities whom the inhabitants of Canaan adored, were the sun, moon, and heavens, or air. To convince them, therefore, that the gods in whom they trusted were subject to the God of Israel, and to punish them, at the same time, for the false worship they paid them, “the Lord showered down great hailstones from the heavens, or air, which slew vast numbers of their powerful army; and then stopped the two great luminaries in their course,” which gave the Israelites time and opportunity to complete their victory over the remainder. It may be thought, perhaps, that the whole motive which induced Joshua to put up his prayer for the prolongation of the day, was only his zeal and eagerness for gaining an entire conquest over his enemies; but we cannot imagine that Joshua should, without a special intimation from heaven, have addressed unto God the prayer concerning the sun and moon, which he is recorded to have done in the sight of Israel; for of what an extravagance would he have appeared guilty, if an effect had not been given to what he asked for? Or how could he be so wild as to think of an accomplishment of so strange an expectation as this would have been, had it been only a thought of his own heart to wish for it? But unquestionably the same Lord who spake unto him before the battle, who bade him not fear the armies of the Canaanites, who assured him that they should not be able to stand before him, directed him to ask for this wonderful miracle, and in granting what he asked for, gave a full testimony, both to the Israelites and their enemies, that the gods of the heathen were but idols, and that it is the Lord that made (and that ruleth in) the heavens.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

By taking away the enemies’ hearts and destroying them with hail stones.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 14. And there was no day like that] There was no period of time in which the sun was kept so long above the horizon as on that occasion. Some learned men have supposed that the Fable of Phaeton was founded on this historic fact. The fable may be seen with all the elegance of poetic embellishment in the commencement of the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses; but I confess I can see nothing in the pretended copy that can justify the above opinion.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. And there was no day like that, etc We read in Isaiah and in the Sacred History, that the course of the sun was afterwards changed as a favor to King Hezekiah. (Isaiah 38:5-8) For to assure him that his life was still to be prolonged fifteen years, the shadow of the sun was carried back over ten degrees on which it had gone down. It is not, therefore, absolutely denied that anything similar had ever been conceded to any other person, but the miracle is extolled as singular. The rendering of the word שמע, by obeyed, as adopted by some, I reject as too harsh. For although it is said in the Psalm, that the Lord does according to the desire of his servants, which may be held to be equivalent to obeying, it is better to avoid anything which seems to give a subordinate office to God. Simply, therefore, the excellence of the miracle is praised, as nothing like it had been seen before or had happened after. The second clause of the verse celebrates the kindness and condescension of God in hearing Joshua, as well as his paternal favor towards the people, for whom he is said to have fought.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(14) And there was no day like that before it or after it.—These words are meaningless, unless the writer intended to convey the idea that there was really a great miracle. We may compare the prophecy in Isa_30:26, “Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. And there was no day] This is still a quotation from the Book of Jashar, or “of riçtwise men,” as Wyclif translates it.

“And so stood the sunne in the mydil of heuene,

And hyede not to goo doun the space of o day;

There was not before ne afterward so loong a day;

For the Lord obeide to the vois of man,

And fauiçt for Israel.”

Compare the returning of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz in the time of Hezekiah, 2Ki_20:11; Isa_38:8.

for the Lord fought for Israel] Compare the account of Josephus, “He then heard that God was helping him, by the signs of thunder, lightning, and unusual hailstones; and that the day was increased lest the night should check the zeal of the Hebrews.… That the length of the day did then increase, and was longer than usual, is told in the books laid up in the temple.” Ant. 5. Jos_1:17.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 (n).

(n) Bedford's Chronology, p. 492.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Long. This word is not found in Hebrew, "and there was no day like that, before it, or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto," &c. But God had often wrought miracles before, at the prayer of his servants. The difference between this day and all others, must be therefore in the length, or in the stopping of the heavenly bodies. (Haydock) --- The long day which the prayer of Ezechias procured, (4 Kings xx., and Isaias xxxviii.) consisted of 32 hours; or, supposing that the retrograde motion of the sun was instantaneous on the dial, it might only be 22 hours in length. (Calmet) --- But if the day of Ezechias had been even longer, the words of this text may be verified, that neither in times past, nor while the author lived, had any such day been known. See Amama, p. 383. (Haydock) --- Obeying. God is ready to grant the requests of his servants, Isaias lviii. 9. "We remark something still stronger, in the power which he has given to priests, to consecrate the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the eucharist." (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

There was no day like that, to wit, in those parts of the world in which he here speaks, and about which the comparison is here made: vain therefore is that objection, that the days are longer near the northern and southern poles, where they are constantly longer at certain seasons, and that by the order of nature; whereas the length of this day was purely contingent. and granted by God in answer to Joshua’s prayer, as is here added.

Object In Hezekiah’s time, and at his prayer, there was a day which may seem to have been longer; for the sun went back ten degrees in ten hours, and then returned again ten degrees in ten hours, and so it was twenty hours longer than a common day, and so longer than this.

Answer It is not certain either that each degree designed an hour, and not rather half an hour, or a quarter, as others think; or that the sun returned those ten degrees as slowly as he went down before or after. Besides, it was now near summer solstice, when the day was longest, and about fourteen hours; and that being doubled, the artificial day was twenty-eight hours; and because there is not the least evidence that Hezekiah’s day was longer, but rather of the contrary, it is much more reasonable to believe this Scripture assertion, than to deny or question upon mere suppositions or idle conjectures.

Hearkened unto the voice of a man, to wit, in such a manner to alter the course of nature, and of the heavenly bodies, that a man might have more time to pursue and destroy his enemies.

The Lord fought for Israel this is added as the reason why God was so ready to answer Joshua’s petition herein, because he was engaged and resolved to fight for Israel, and that in a more than ordinary manner.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. No day like that — No day was ever before or since supernaturally extended at the command of man. God had often before this hearkened unto the voice of man, but never before to the voice of a man inspired with miracle-working faith to control the movements of the heavenly bodies.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There was no day like that before it or after it. Cf. for this expression 2Ki_18:5 2Ki_23:22, 2Ki_23:25.

HOMILIES BY J. WAITE Vers. 14. A day of wonders.

The Canaanite kings were slow in gathering their forces together to repel the advance of Joshua, but they were ready enough to come down in vengeance upon the Gibeonites for having made peace with him. The men of Gibeon found the advantage of having a strong and generous protector, one who would be true to his pledges, even though they had been extorted from him by fraud. Joshua responds at once to the cry that comes to him from the beleaguered city, and God makes its deliverance the occasion for a signal display of His power and the furtherance of His purpose in the overthrow of the kings. The blending of the natural and supernatural in the events of this day is very remarkable. The two elements are so interlaced and interwoven that it is not for us to say where the one ends and the other begins. We only feel, in following the course of the narrative, that we are in the presence of a marvellous Divine power that carries all resistance before it. Such records as this, however, have their true effect upon us when they lead us the more clearly to recognise the supernatural force in the natural, to discern behind the common, familiar order of things the mystery and majesty of the Divine. With the vexed question as to the historic truth of the declaration that "the sun stood still in the midst of heaven," we have not now to do (see Exposition). We simply note that, if the use the historian makes of the poetic quotation from the Book of Jasher compels us to regard it as having some basis of fact, there is no need on that account to believe in any actual arrest of the order of the universe. May not natural agents and natural laws be used miraculously by Him who is the Author of them? Just as He who created the hailstones could, without injury to the Israelites, turn them as engines of destruction against their foes, so surely He who at the beginning "commanded the light to shine out of darkness" could, in ways to us unknown, prolong the day in answer to Joshua"s prayer. Two broad lessons grow out of this:

I THAT GOD"S SOVEREIGNTY OVER NATURE IS SUBSERVIENT TO THE HIGHER PURPOSES OF HIS SPIRITUAL KINGDOM. We look through these outward incidents to the Divine end which they were all helping to work out. God was "forming a people for his praise." Giving them a local habitation, that they might the better conserve His truth and show forth His glory. He drove out the heathen before them, and planted them there that they might bear rich fruits of blessing to the world, that in them and in their seed all the earth might be blessed. Everything is to be looked at in the light of that moral purpose.

(1) The whole visible universe exists for spiritual ends the revelation of the invisible Divine beauty and order; the magnifying of the law of eternal righteousness. Its activity and its rest, its discords and its harmonies, its terror and its loveliness, all have a moral meaning and intent.

(2) The forces and laws of the universe are against those who are against God. You must be morally one with Him if you would have them befriend you. "The stars in their courses fight against Sisera." How terrible to think of some of the forms in which the Creator might, if He pleased, array the powers of nature against sinful men! His long-suffering beneficence is their only safeguard. "It is of the Lord"s mercies that we are not consumed". (Lam_3:22)

(3) The created universe attains its consummation only in the final spiritual triumph of the Redeemer. The groaning creation waits for the "manifestation of the sons of God." The glorious presence of the Lord will be "the restitution of all things." There will be "nothing to hurt or to destroy" in the "new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

II THAT MAN IS AN EFFICIENT INSTRUMENT IN SERVING THE CAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS JUST SO FAR AS HE HAS FAITH TO LAY HOLD ON THE SOVEREIGN POWER OF GOD. "There was no day like that before it or after it," not because there was anything singular, unparalleled, in God"s "hearkening to the voice of a man." This was simply a conspicuous and noteworthy example of a universal law. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man "has always" availed much." The resources of heaven wait upon it. Such prayer is "A breath that fleets beyond this iron world, And touches Him that made it.

(1) Let the Church "stir itself up to lay hold on God." Its strength lies in faith and prayer. The Lord will never fail to "fight for Israel" when she is true to her high calling. The weapons of her warfare are mighty through Him. "God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early". (Psa_46:5) This pledge of Divine protection and deliverance is given, not to ecclesiastical systems, which may have much that is of man rather than of God in their constitution, but to that Church which Christ has redeemed and chosen out of every land and nation to represent His own cause of truth and righteousness. When the Church goes forth in the energy of faith and prayer, its enemies flee before it.

(2) Let the individual Christian recognise the true source of moral power. No emergency of life need be overwhelming to one who casts himself unreservedly on God. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Move on steadily in the path of duty and fear not. In all conceivable times of difficulty and danger, of temptation and sorrow, Christ"s answer to the cry of His faithful ones is the same grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. W.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

No day like that - Namely, in those parts of the world in which he here speaks, vain therefore is that objection, that the days are longer near the northern and southern poles, where they are constantly longer at certain seasons, and that by the order of nature; whereas the length of this day was purely contingent, and granted by God in answer to Joshua's prayer. The Lord hearkened to a man - Namely, in such a manner to alter the course of nature, and of the heavenly bodies, that a man might have more time to pursue and destroy his enemies. The Lord fought - This is added as the reason why God was so ready to answer Joshua's petition, because he was resolved to fight for Israel, and that in a more than ordinary manner. But this stupendous miracle was designed for something more, than to give Israel light to destroy the Canaanites. It was designed to convince and confound those idolaters, who worshipped the sun and moon, by demonstrating, that these also were subject to the command of the God of Israel: as also to signify, that in the latter days, when the world was covered with darkness, the sun of righteousness, even our Joshua, should arise, and be the true light of the world. To which we may add, that when Christ conquered our enemies upon the cross, the miracle wrought on the sun was the reverse of this. It was then darkened, as if going down at noon. For Christ needed not the light of the sun, to compleat his victory: so he made darkness his pavilion.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.