Re: [asa] Turning back the sun

Your view, David, seems supported by Strong's definition of "stand still" (damam) which states it is...?
?
"...to be dumb; by implication; to be astonished, to stop; also to perish".?
?
Though your view may be correct, it still seems a little too poetic for me since the entire heavens seems to have stopped due to the reference to both Sun and Moon.?

I had never heard this view of Joshua's long day before, but I (respectfully) want to argue that it is not the most feasible interpretation.? Clouds passing in front of the sun are common and would not merit?this kind of treatment?in the Bible as a remarkable intervention of God that inspired poetry and so forth.?

Note also that Joshua is not praying to God in this verse.? He is not asking God to make the sun stop shining.? (This is an important point that seems to have been universally missed.)? Instead, he is directly addressing the _sun_ .? He says, "O sun, ..."? This can't be interpreted as a prayer since praying to the sun was not permitted!? It was just a poetic exclamation to the sun because God was fighting for Israel by throwing hailstones (verse 11).? God didn't answer a "prayer" to do somethign with the sun because it wasn't a prayer in the first place.

Also, there is no biblical support for the idea that Joshua wanted the day to last longer so that the Jews could complete the extermination of their enemies.? That interpretation has been added later but is not supported in any way in the text.? Where does it say that Joshua wanted the day to be longer?? where does it say he needed more time to kill more people?? It doesn't.? In fact, that interpretation goes counter to the text because the Bible emphasizes that it was God who killed most of the enemies by throwing hailstones at them.? To say that Joshua asked for a longer day so that the Jews could?keep killing puts the emphasis on the?Jewish warriors doing the killing and that is unbiblical and contrary to the whole tenor of the account.?

There is also no support for the idea that Joshua wanted the sun to stop shining so that the Jews would be cooler so they could keep killing the enemy.? That is completely unsupported by the text, and I think we have to say that is isegesis seeking concordance, and not really based in the ideas found in the text, itself.

What the text does say is that God suddenly sent hailstones, which causes such astonishement that Joshua is depicted (by a poet) as addressing the sun to be a witness to the miracle and hence to be dumb in astonishment.? There is no basis to say the sun stopped moving or stopped outputting light or was covered by a cloud or anything at all.? It was just a poetic exclamation and nothing more.

The word literally means "dumb" (a reference to speech),?and the?non-literal uses of the word were related astonishment (like stopping in your tracks by astonishment, which also causes one to be momentarily "dumb-struck" as we say), or to die (which also makes one dumb).? I doubt there is?a empirical basis to say that the idea of stopping speech was?poetically applied?"stopping the?output of?light" from a candle or from the sun, in the Hebrew usage of the word.? I can see how it may have been applied that way, because speech and light both emanate from things.? So I understand the hypothesis to connect these two ideas.? But there is no eveidence that it was ever actually used that way.? If there had been usage of the stoppage of light being compared to being "dumb", then Strong's would have said so (but it didn't).? On the other hand, if Joshua 10 used this word as a reference to the sun being astonished (and hence dumb-struck), which is indeed supported by Hebrew usage accor
 ding to Strongs, then it was used that way because God was fighting for the Israelites in verse 11, throwing hailstones, and so there is no reason to draw any ideas?about the sun actually doing anything.? The author is just speaking to the sun and moon, as heavenly witnesses of the battle, to look down and be astonished.

I have argued hard against this interpretation.? Although I think it is a creative attempt at corcordance, I don't think it is the best at being sensitive to the tenor of the text.? I prefer to conclude that the account is just being poetic.

Phil

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Received on Fri Sep 28 18:25:41 2007