This memorable event, one of the most extraordinary we meet with in history, hath mightily amused sceptics. But it is the misapprehension of the thing itself, which hath occasioned their folly, and not the real fact. God was pleased to suspend the light of the heavenly bodies, for the purpose of Joshua ' s carrying on the great victory, of destroying the enemies of the Lord. It was not the body of the sun that stood still in Gibeon, nor the moon itself in Ajalon: but the reflected light of those heavenly bodies. The original word, which means the sun or body of the sun, in Scripture is Chemah; and that of the moon Libnah; whereas, in this passage, the original is Shemish, solar light; and Jarech, lunar light; evidently meaning, that the Lord miraculously caused the reflected light of the sun and moon, to answer the purposes intended, by preserving both on the earth for the discomfiture of his enemies. And is there anything for laughter in this? Can anything be too hard with God? Doth not the Holy Ghost say, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us? 1 John 5:14. Read that wonderful condescension of God: Isaiah 45:11. We have no account in God's word, concerning this book of Jasher. Probably it was some historian of that day. But from not being commissioned by the Holy Ghost to write, no further account is taken of him. I stop the Reader, just to beg him to remark with me, that at the death of our glorious Joshua, which was the hour of his victory over death, hell, and the grave, the reverse of this miracle took place; for the sun was darkened at midday. And I detain him once more to observe, that there is a day coming when all the victories of our glorious Joshua shall be summed up, and it is promised that the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come. See Luke 23:44-45; Acts 2:20 And doth not Jesus suspend the operations of nature very frequently, and the powers of darkness, in order to carry on his victories in the hearts of his people? The Holy Ghost gives us authority to believe this, by what he saith in the ministry of his servant the prophet: when he goeth forth for the salvation of his people. Habakkuk 3:11-13.
Related Commentaries of Joshua 10:12
Joshua 10:12-14
12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
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.