And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah.
The Lord discomfited them - Hebrew, terrified, confounded the Amorite allies; probably, in the first instance, by the suddenness of the Israelites' appearance, and the effect of their terrific war-shout, but afterward by a fearful storm of lightning and thunder. So the word is usually employed (Judges 4:15; Judges 5:20; 1 Samuel 7:10; Psalms 18:13-14; Psalms 144:6).
And slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon. This refers to the attack of the Israelites upon the besiegers. It is evident that there had been much hard fighting around the heights of Gibeon for the day was far spent ere the enemy took to flight.
Chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon - i:e., the House of the Hollow, or the House of Caves, of which there are still traces existing. Others ascribe the name to the worship of Horus. There were two contiguous villages of that name-upper and nether. Upper Beth-horon was nearest Gibeon-about ten miles distant-and approached by a gradual ascent through a long and precipitous ravine. This was the first stage of the flight. The fugitives had crossed the high ridge of Upper Beth-horon, and were in full flight down the descent to Beth-horon the Nether. 'The road between the two places is so rocky and rugged that there, is a path made by means of steps cut in the rock' (Robinson). Down this pass, the scene of this first (as also of the last great victory that crowned the Jewish arms, at the interval of nearly 1,500 years-Stanley, 'Sinai and Palestine,' p. 208), Joshua continued his victorious route. Here it was that the Lord interposed, assisting his people by means of a storm-`one of the fearful tempests which from time to time sweep over the hills of Palestine' (Stanley), and which, having been probably gathering all day, burst with such irresistible fury that "they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword."
The Oriental hail-storm is a terrific agent: the hailstones are masses of ice, large as walnuts, and sometimes as two fists; their prodigious size, and the violence with which they fall, make them always very injurious to property, and often fatal to life, both in men and beasts (see Hardy's 'Notices of the Holy Land,' p. 213). 'Infidelity has ridiculed this miracle, but without reason. That single stones, and even showers of stones, of uncommon weight have frequently fallen, is proved by the most unexceptionable evidence. In 1510, near Padua, in Italy, about 1,200 stones fell, and some of them were 120 lbs. weight. On the Upper Rhine, in 1492, once stone fell, 260 lbs.; and near Verona, in 1762, one fell 200, and another 300 lbs. weight. Why, then, should it be thought incredible that God should employ such agents on the occasion before us? Does not disbelief of such a recorded fact display culpable ignorance or heartless folly? But granting that the shower was composed of hailstones, this concession does not, even supposing that it was a natural occurrence, increase the improbability of the case. In the south of France and Switzerland hailstones of large size sometimes fall in showers, and still more frequently in the countries of the Levant. Among the Arabian hills, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, it is recorded that thirty of the soldiers of Baldwin I. perished in a tempest, described as "horrible hail, terrible frost, and indescribable rain and snow." Nor does his strong description appear much overcharged, when it is considered that thirty soldiers fell victims to the severity of the storm.
Thus, completely does history refute the infidel objection of impossibility in the present instance. Yet who, except one strangely insensible to his condition as a feeble creature, would presumptuously circumscribe the power of the Deity over universal nature? This shower, though natural in itself, was supernaturally employed, and miraculously directed, to fall where and when it did, and to do the execution prescribed' (''Azuba,' by Rev. W. Ritchie, p. 396). The miraculous feature of this tempest, which fell on the Amorite army, was the entire preservation of the Israelites from its destructive ravages.