Good Heavens! Joshua Commands the Sun to Stand Still!
Good Heavens! Joshua Commands the Sun to Stand Still!
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters,’ and God made the expanse and called it Sky, or the Heavens… And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.’ And God made the two great lights and the stars.” (Genesis 1:1,6,14).
DEFINING OUR TERMS:
Firmament = Latin, for vast expanse or sky; expanse of the heavens above the earth; the expansive atmosphere.
Celestial = Greek, “epouranis;” above the sky; heavenly; belonging to heaven; the world beyond our ability to perceive; contrasted with terrestrial (of the land); in Bible often pertains to spiritual heaven as a divine place above the sky, and the resurrection.
Cosmos = Greek, “kosmos;” all of creation; a well-ordered whole; the harmonious universe; the inherent ordered arrangement of the world; humanity, all the people on earth.
Star = Greek, “aster;” a giant, beautiful, glowing ball of hot gas in space; composed of 90% hydrogen and 10% helium; powered by nuclear fusion as it produces light and heat energy, causing it to shine in the night sky.
Planet = Greek, means “wandering star;” a natural object that has a motion of its own, orbiting a star; is massive enough for its gravity to force it into a spherical shape; composed of rock or metal with solid surface (if nearer to the sun), or hydrogen and helium gas (if further away from the sun).
Galaxy = a huge, organized grouping of stars.
Galaxy Groups = a large collection of galaxies.
Galaxy Clusters = thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity.
Super Clusters = large grouping of galaxy clusters.
Galaxy Filaments = huge ‘walls’ of galaxy super clusters.
Constellation = a group of stars that form a pattern or design in the night sky, making an imaginary shape or design; they are usually named after mythological characters, animals, or objects that they resemble; there are 88 officially recognized constellations.
Light-Year = This is a unit of length, not of time; it is a way of measuring the distance between objects in space; it is based on how far it takes light to travel in one year; light travels at 186,000 miles per second; one light year is about 6 trillion miles. So to determine the distance across the Milky Way galaxy, for example, we would have to multiply 6 trillion miles times 100,000 light-years. Practically countless.
“Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God, for He is gracious and lovely; praise is becoming and appropriate… He determines and counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by their names. Great is the Lord, and of great power; His understanding is inexhaustible and boundless.” (Psalm 147:1, 4, 5).
BY THE NUMBERS:
Size of the Universe = Impossible to determine the actual size; it may be an infinite size, or “maybe finite but unbounded;” the universe is flat and constantly expanding at a very fast rate; the observable universe is about 94 billion light-years in diameter; the most distant objects in universe are 47 billion light-years away; it is estimated that the universe is 250 times larger than the observable universe, or 7 trillion light-years across.
Number of Galaxies = in observable universe, there are between 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies.
Number of Stars = in observable universe, there is an average of 100 million stars in each galaxy; many galaxies have billions of stars; the largest known galaxy has 100 trillion stars; astronomers suggest there are more stars in the observable universe than there are grains of beach sand on the Earth.
Number of Planets = For every one of the billions of stars in the observable universe, there are many planets; the number of planets are thus literally uncountable.
Earth’s Galaxy = The Milky Way, which has between 100-400 billion stars; it is 100,000 light-years across; it appears there is only one sun in the Milky Way, sitting exactly in the middle of our solar system; our sun is a star that has eight planets orbiting around it. Our closest galaxy neighbor is the Andromeda galaxy, which has 1 trillion stars.
“Lift up your eyes on high, and see! Who created these? He who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name; through the greatness of His might, and because He is strong in power, not one is missing or lacks anything.” (Isaiah 40:26).
Joshua and the Miracle of the Sun Standing Still:
“Then Joshua spoke to the Lord Yahweh 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 still over Gibeon; and moon, in the valley of Ayalon.’ So the sun stood still and the moon stopped, until the people had revenge upon their enemies. So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before or after it, that the Lord Yahweh heeded the voice of a man.” (Joshua 10:12-14).
Joshua wanted to finish off the Amorites right then and there in Gibeon, so Joshua made his outlandish request of the Lord…. “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon over the valley of Ayalon.” Astoundingly, the day was lengthened by additional sunlight, as Joshua’s forces succeeded in completing the rout of the Amorite enemy.
“For the Lord God is brighter than the brilliance of a sunrise! Wrapping Himself around me like a shield, He is so generous with His gifts of grace and glory. Those who walk along His paths with integrity will never lack one thing they need, for He provides it all! (Psalm 84:11).
Fun Facts about the Sun:
- It is an especially powerful star in our galaxy that will probably burn out and die in five billion years or so when it runs out of hydrogen in its core;
- There is only one sun in our Milky Way galaxy, and it is in the very center of our solar system;
- Our sun is the only star that is not a part of a constellation in our solar system;
- Our sun is 93 billion miles away from the earth;
- Our sun appears to be white because it is made up of all the colors mixed together;
- Light from our sun reaches earth in about 8 minutes;
- The diameter of the sun is about 110 times wider than the earth’s diameter;
- It is estimated that the sun has to be about 4.6 billion years old.
The Sun? Stand Still? Skeptics of the Bible’s legitimacy have long used this miracle to prove their point. This is literally impossible, they say, knowing what we know now about how the universe operates. There would be natural catastrophes occurring all over the earth and the sky if its delicate timing of the solar system were disrupted. There is no plausible scientific explanation for this, they say, because the laws of nature and physics can’t possibly be changed like this. Some things to think about regarding this miracle:
(1.) The earth rotates on its axis at about 1,000 m.p.h.
(2.) The sun is moving as well, relative to the earth. It rotates at its equator once every 27 days, and travels through the Milky Way Galaxy at about 500,000 m.p.h. This is getting to be a complicated miracle!
(3.) The earth revolves around the sun, so was it the earth that stood still, or the sun, or both?
(4.) We haven’t even mentioned the moon yet. The moon rotates on its axis as it revolves around the earth. The moon stopped as it rotated?
(5.) To accept this unprecedented miracle literally, we would need to acknowledge the powers of the Lord of creation. He is sovereign over nature, and He is able to suspend nature’s laws that He invented and put in place. Creator God is able to temporarily change the laws of physics supernaturally, and will do whatever it takes to keep from having any number of catastrophes. It comes down to faith in God’s powers as we consider this apparently impossible, logically unthinkable miracle. The bottom line is, is there any reason we can’t accept this? Is there any reason we can’t consider this to be a once in lifetime astronomical miracle?
(6.) Don’t forget that the Lord caused the sun to darken at the Crucifixion for three hours (Luke 23:45). If Creator God can cause the sun to darken for a number of hours, He can certainly cause to the sun to continue shining as well. He can cause the moon to turn to the color of blood if He wants (Rev.6:12), or for that matter remove the sun and moon altogether (Rev.21:23).
(7.) What do we really know about how God does His miracles, anyway? How did He turn water into wine? Multiply bread and fish? Walk on water? Heal blindness? Cause fish to jump into a net? How did He part the Red Sea or send those plagues to Egypt? We simply don’t know how God performed those miracles in a scientific sense. That’s why we call them supernatural. They are outside of nature, like the sun and moon standing still.
(8.) What better way to prove to the pagans that Yahweh the Creator of the world is more powerful than the sun gods and moon gods worshipped for so long?
“What a heavenly home God has set for the sun, shining in the superdome of the sky! See how the sun leaves his celestial chamber each morning, radiant as a bridegroom ready for his wedding, like a day-breaking champion eager to run its course. He rises on one horizon, completing his circuit on the other, warming lives and lands with his heat.” (Psalm 19:5-6).
Possibilities. Many explanations have been offered to try to make sense of this miracle, some of them are more reasonable than others:
(1.) Joshua was using a figure of speech according to what he was perceiving. Maybe he was out in the sun for so long that day, and he accomplished so much more than he expected, that it seemed like the day was lengthened and the sun kept shining. After all, we say other things according to our perception even though we know they are not technically true, such as when we say that we are watching the sun rise and the sun set.
(2.) When Joshua wrote his book detailing Israel’s exploits taking over the Promised Land, he simply was reporting this incident poetically and not literally. He wanted to use descriptive terms that heightened the drama of the battle scene, he wanted to use some hyperbole to let the reader know that this was truly a very important win for the Israelites.
(3.) This event was actually an “annular eclipse,” when the moon only partially covers the sun at night, enabling sunlight to occur during the evening hours.
(4.) God did actually, literally stop the earth from rotating, and the sun from moving, and the moon as well, for twenty-four hours, coordinating this in a way that didn’t result in any disruption of our solar system.
(5.) God slowed the earth’s rotation without fully stopping it, thus lengthening the day by slowing the earth’s rotation to 48 hours instead of the usual 24 hours.
(6.) The sun and the moon standing still was just a timely mirage.
(7.) A Yale astronomer and a Harvard research scientist have both claimed that in their research they have discovered that the earth is somehow twenty-four hours out of schedule. They say that through the centuries we have somehow lost a full day. These claims have not been confirmed or proven, and many other scientists consider this laughable.
(8.) There have been unproven claims that there have been extended days found in the historical records of China, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Babylonians, the Persians, and in Egypt. This would be fascinating if true, but these claims have yet to be confirmed.
(9.) This battle site was simply an incident of a local refracted light that lengthened the daylight.
(10.) The Hebrew words for “sun stand still” suggests a meaning of “sun stop working,” which means the sun was too hot in the mist of the battle, and Joshua wanted the sun to lessen its brightness and heat to enable the overheated soldiers to continue fighting. Sun, you’re too hot and bright! Tone it down for a while!
Totally Unique. One way or another, Joshua called for the sun to stand still and for the moon to stop its circuit. Did Joshua realize the rather ridiculous request he was making of the Lord? Well, the result was an amazing, astounding miracle that has never been duplicated. But we already knew God can make things happen that we can’t understand, right?
“May those who love you, Lord, be as the sun rising in might! May your friends be like the sun going forth in power!” (Judges 5:31).