Then spake Joshua] This celebrated passage (as will be seen in RV) consists of (1) a prose introduction, Joshua 10:12; (2) a poetical fragment quoted from the book of Jasher, Joshua 10:12; Joshua 10:13; and (3) a prose comment on that quotation, 13b; 14.
The four lines from the book of Jasher run, literally, as follows:—Sun, be thou dumb upon Gibeon; And thou, moon, in valley of Aijalon!
And the sun became dumb, and the moon stood, Till the people were avenged on their foes.
Taken by themselves these four lines might refer to an eclipse, or to a prolongation of the darkness of the hailstorm (see Joshua 10:11). The sun is spoken of as 'dumb' when not shining, as in Dante's 'Inferno,'
1. 60, the sunless shade is 'dove il sol tace' (where the sun is speechless). At first sight the comment in Joshua 10:13; Joshua 14 seems decisive against this interpretation. But Edersheim regards these vv. as themselves (substantially) quoted from the book of Jasher; in which case they would be poetical and figurative, and other writers boldly take them as a later gloss, written at a time when the figurative language of the poem was misunderstood. In favour of this view is the fact that there are no certain references to this event as miraculous in the other books of the OT.; and it is not till Joshua 180 b.c. (Sir 46:4) that we find the first clear mention of the miracle as making 'the sun go back'; an interpretation which was followed by the author of the 'Psalms of Solomon' (Joshua 18:14) Joshua 50 b.c., and by Josephus, and has been the 'traditional' one till lately. This interpretation of the incident, which makes it involve a literal 'staying of the sun,' i.e. in modern language, an arresting of the earth's rotatory motion, has not unnaturally tried the faith of many who, while accepting the doctrine of God's omnipotence, feel that such a kind of interpretation contradicts what God Himself has taught them about the orderly working of His universe. Whether we regard the divine answer to Joshua's prayer as given in the form of a prolongation of the daylight, in spite of the hailstorm (see Edersheim), or (perhaps better) as prolongation of the storm darkness, we must not forget that the record is poetry and not prose, and the inspired language of the passage ancient and oriental, not modern, western, and scientific.