The Day the Sun Stood Still

“So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day” (Josh. 10:13b).

The sun is God’s creation. That’s important to remember. God made the sun, the moon, and the stars. Out of absolutely nothing He created them. He ordered exactly how close the earth would come to the rays of the sun’s heat and light. Thus, our world doesn’t freeze with the intense cold experienced by the planet Pluto, and it doesn’t burn with the intense heat experienced by Mercury. In addition, God the Creator set the course of this world’s orbit around the sun so that it takes 365.25 days. And He determined the speed the earth spins on its axis, so that every 24 hours the sun “rises” on the eastern horizon once again.

Elementary, of course. All these facts are well-known to every budding sixth-grade physicist.

But be careful that your assumption does not become presumption! For it has not always been so and it will not always be the same. Only because of God’s covenant in creation and redemption is this order maintained with such regularity, and when irregularity better suits the larger purposes of God, the patterns of the past will not prevail. Consider then “the day the sun stood still.”

The difficulty of believing this is somewhat understandable. The earth spins on its axis at approximately 1,000 miles per hour. Most people know what happens when a car traveling at 60 miles per hour has a head-on collision—the car stops, but everything inside keeps speeding ahead at 60 miles per hour. If the earth, spinning on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour, suddenly stops, then cars, people, elephants, and everything else will continue to travel at 1,000 miles per hour with the prospect of going into orbit!

This may be why so many people seek ways to “get around” the language of the book of Joshua: Perhaps it is using a poetic form of speech, they say, or perhaps there was a mere refraction of the sun’s light that created the illusion that it was standing still. But getting back to the basics of the Bible, it must be noted that both within and without the framework of the poetic mode of expression in the narrative, this phrase is repeated: “The sun stood still” (Josh. 10:13a, 13b). The hard, cold fact of the matter is underscored by the next phrase: “There has been no day like that, before it or after it” (Josh. 10:14a). Many days have been described poetically and many have included peculiar refractions of the sun’s light. But never has there been a day like this one, in which the sun stood still.

But why? What was the occasion? What brought about such a spectacular display of God’s intervention in the regulated processes of time and history?

It was the simple but fervent prayer of a man filled with zeal for the coming of God’s kingdom that triggered the whole situation. As the narrative reports, “There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to the voice of a man!” (Josh. 10:14, NAB).

All through the night Joshua had led his army in a forced march from Jericho to the region west of Jerusalem. They had trudged 12 to 18 miles in the dark, ascending more than 3,000 feet in a matter of hours. They fought a well-prepared coalition of forces from the dawn of the next day until dusk. They then pursued their stricken foes uphill, downhill, and uphill again.

And then Joshua had the audacity to ask for more time! Without a sign of complaint from his dog-tired troops, this singular warrior for the Lord requested a longer day so he could claim a complete victory over the Lord’s enemies.

So the Lord, the Creator of the universe, the One who controls the orbit of the earth about the sun, did this spectacular thing. He made the sun stand still until Joshua had completed his task. There’s little point in quibbling about the fact that it actually was the earth that stood still instead of the sun. Just as the most knowledgeable physicist of today may refer to the beautiful “sunrise” each morning, so Scripture speaks quite naturally according to the convention of common human observation.

The Lord responded in this spectacular way to the prayer of His zealous servant. The Almighty did not hesitate to make use of His divine power to work salvation for His people.

So today believers in Christ have even more reason to show zeal for their Lord. Yet it often appears that the Lord’s servants of today have far less zeal than Joshua of old. They want to do the least amount of work in the shortest time possible. Little zeal may be found among suburban Christians to respond to the needs of people in the inner city. Christians of the West show a great reluctance to deny themselves the comforts of home so they can minister to the millions of orphans and street children who have arisen in the Third World as a consequence of the AIDS epidemic.

Yet the risen Lord has given His Great Commission. All the world must hear His Gospel before the final sign of the Son of Man appears. Only after this Gospel has been preached to all the nations will the end come (Matt. 24:14, 30).

May God the Creator, the Lord of redemption, move His people with a zeal that will consume them—all for the glory of God. May Christians live today as though they still believe in the God who made the sun stand still.