Joshua 10:12 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Joshua 10:12
Then spake Joshua to the LORD 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 thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
the face (as the part that turns) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
children
בְּנֵ֣יbe.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֑לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
said
וַיֹּ֣אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
sight
לְעֵינֵ֣יle.'ei.Nei
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֗לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
Sun
שֶׁ֚מֶשׁShe.mesh
H8121
the sun · noun, common both genders singular absolute
still
דּ֔וֹםDom
H1826
to be dumb · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
Gibeon
בְּגִבְע֣וֹןbe.giv.'on
H1391
Gibon · preposition + proper noun, a place name
Moon
וְיָרֵ֖חַve.ya.Re.ach
H3394
the moon · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular absolute
valley
בְּעֵ֥מֶקbe.'E.mek
H6010
a vale (i.e. broad depression) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Ajalon
אַיָּלֽוֹן'ai.ya.Lon
H357
Ajalon · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Habakkuk 3:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.
Isaiah 38:8 Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned…
Isaiah 60:20 Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mo…
Joshua 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of…
Isaiah 28:21 For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and…
Deuteronomy 4:19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shoulde…
Job 9:7 Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.
Judges 12:12 And Elon the Zebulonite died, and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Joshua 10:7-14
Here, I. Joshua resolves to assist the Gibeonites, and God encourages him in this resolve. 1. He ascended from Gilgal (Jos 10:7), that is, he designed, determined, and prepared for, this expedition to relieve Gibeon, for it is probable it was before he stirred a step that God spoke to him to encourage him. It was generous and just in Joshua to help his new allies, though perhaps the king of Jerusalem, when he attacked them, little thought that Joshua would be so ready to help them, but expected he would abandon them as Canaanites, the rather because they had obtained their league with him by fraud; therefore he speaks with assurance (Jos 10:4) of smiting Gibeon. But Joshua knew that his prom…
THE SUN AND MOON STAND STILL AT THE WORD OF JOSHUA. (Jos 10:12-15)
Then spake Joshua to the Lord . . . and . . . he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still . . . and thou, Moon--The inspired author here breaks off the thread of his history of this miraculous victory to introduce a quotation from an ancient poem, in which the mighty acts of that day were commemorated. The passage, which is parenthetical, contains a poetical description of the victory which was miraculously gained by the help of God, and forms an extract from "the book of Jasher," that is, "the upright"--an anthology, or collection of national songs, in honor of renowned and eminently pious heroes. The language of…
Then spake Joshua to the Lord - Though Joshua saw that the enemies of his people were put to flight, yet he well knew that all which escaped would rally again, and that he should be obliged to meet them once more in the field of battle if permitted now to escape; finding that the day was drawing towards a close, he feared that he should not have time sufficient to complete the destruction of the confederate armies; in this moment, being suddenly inspired with Divine confidence, he requested the Lord to perform the most stupendous miracle that had ever been wrought, which was no less than to arrest the sun in his course, and prolong the day till the destruction of his enemies had been complet…
The Church Fathers
Thus also with power did Joshua, the son of Nun, command the sun and the moon, and they were restrained, and each of them stood still in its course. Joshua stretched out his hand and spake with the power of faith, saying, "Thou sun, tarry in Gibeon, and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon;" and the sun was restrained, and the moon stood until the people had taken vengeance upon its enemies.
Let no one tell me, therefore, that the motions of the heavenly bodies constitute time. For when the sun stood still at the prayer of a certain man in order that he might gain his victory in battle, the sun stood still but time went on. For in as long a span of time as was sufficient the battle was fought and ended.I see, then, that time is a certain kind of extension.
But perhaps renown in war keeps some so bound to itself as to make them think that fortitude is to be found in battle alone and that therefore I had gone aside to speak of these things, because that was lacking in us. But how brave was Joshua the son of Nun, who in one battle laid low five kings together with their people! Again, when he fought against the Gibeonites and feared that night might stop him from gaining the victory, he called out with deep faith and high spirit: "Let the sun stand still"; and it stood still until the victory was complete.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Adoni-zedec — Lord of justice or righteousness, was king in Jerusalem at the time when the Israelites invaded Palestine (Josh. 10:1, 3). He formed a confederacy with the other Canaanitish kings against the…
Adonizedek — (lord of justice), the Amorite king of Jerusalem who organized a league with four other Amorite princes against Joshua. The confederate kings having laid siege to Gibeon, Joshua marched to the relief…
Aijalon, Or Ajalon — (place of gazelles).
Ajalon — And Aij’alon, place of deer. (1.) A town and valley originally assigned to the tribe of Dan, from which, however, they could not drive the Amorites (Judg. 1:35). It was one of the Levitical cities…
Jasher — Upright. “The Book of Jasher,” rendered in the LXX. “the Book of the Upright One,” by the Vulgate “the Book of Just Ones,” was probably a kind of national sacred song-book, a collection of songs in…
Joshua, The Book of — Contains a history of the Israelites from the death of Moses to that of Joshua. It consists of three parts: (1.) The history of the conquest of the land (1-12). (2.) The allotment of the land to the…
Makkedah — Herdsman’s place, one of the royal cities of the Canaanites (Josh. 12:16), near which was a cave where the five kings who had confederated against Israel sought refuge (10:10-29). They were put to…
Moon — Heb. yareah, from its paleness (Ezra 6:15), and lebanah, the “white” (Cant. 6:10; Isa. 24:23), was appointed by the Creator to be with the sun “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”…
Valley — (1.) Heb. bik’ah, a “cleft” of the mountains (Deut. 8:7; 11:11; Ps. 104:8; Isa. 41:18); also a low plain bounded by mountains, as the plain of Lebanon at the foot of Hermon around the sources of the…
Then spake Joshua to the Lord,.... In prayer, and entreated as follows, that the sun and moon might stand still, until the victory was complete; though the Jewish writers interpret it of a song; so the Targum, then Joshua praised, or sung praise, as in the Targum on Sol 1:1; and which is approved of by Jarchi and Kimchi:
in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; the five kings of the Amorites, and their armies, Joshua 10:5,
and he said, in the sight of Israel; in their presence, and in the hearing of great numbers, being under a divine impulse, and having strong faith in the working of the miracle, after related, and that it would be according to his…
Joshua 10:1-14
1. Now it came to pass, when Adonizedek king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;
1. Quum audisset Adoni-zedec rex Jerusalem quod cepisset Josue Hai, et eam perdidisset (quemadmodum feceret Jericho, et regi ejus, quod sic fecisset Hai et regi ejus) et quod pacem fecissent habitatores Gibeon cum Israel, et essent inter ipsos:
2. That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were…
In firm reliance upon the promise of God (Jos 10:8), Joshua offered a prayer to the Lord during the battle, that He would not let the sun go down till Israel had taken vengeance upon their foes; and the Lord hearkened to the prayer of His servant, and the sun hastened not to go down till the defeat of the Amorites was accomplished. This miraculous victory was celebrated by the Israelites in a war-song, which was preserved in the "book of the Righteous." The author of the book of Joshua has introduced the passage out of this book which celebrates the mighty act of the Lord for the glorification of His name upon Israel, and their foes the Amorites. It is generally admitted, that Jos 10:12-15 c…
Joshua prayed to have the day lengthened so the Israelites could finish the task without allowing the Amorite forces time to organize a new defense against Israel. • The sun and moon, two of Canaan’s most powerful gods, proved powerless against the Lord. • Aijalon was a city near the western end of the Beth-horon road.
Rashi on Joshua 10:12
Then [Yehoshua] spoke. He said a song [of praise to God]1According to Rashi, Yehoshua sang a song of praise, and the word יְדַבֵּר which is usually translated as spoke, in this context is an expression of שִׁירָה. in place of the sun, for he had said “Let the sun stop.” [meaning] that he silenced it from reciting its song.2According to Rambam and other commentaries, the sun, the moon and other heavenly spheres are living beings and possess intelligence. They hear and speak, and thus they interpret these verses literally: “The heavens recount the glory of the Almighty.” (Tehillim 19:2), and Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all the stars of light. (Tehillim 148:3). They actually verbalize…
Amorites, The · Miraculous overthrow of — Miraculous overthrow of
Astronomy · SI — SI
Debir · 1. King of Eglon — 1. King of Eglon
Gibeon · confe — confe
Hebron · against Joshua — against Joshua
Jerusalem · The king of, defeated and slain by Joshua — The king of, defeated and slain by Joshua
Meteorology And Celestial Phenomena · .Sun stood still — .Sun stood still
Miracles Wrought Through Servants Of God · Joshua: The sun and moon stayed — Joshua: The sun and moon stayed
Moon · Stands still — Stands still
Moon, The · Miracles connected with: Standing still in Ajalon — Miracles connected with: Standing still in Ajalon
Sun · Stood still — Stood still
Sun, The · Miracles connected with: Standing still for a whole day in the valley of Ajalon — Miracles connected with: Standing still for a whole day in the valley of Ajalon
Valleys · Mentioned in scripture: Ajalon — Mentioned in scripture: Ajalon
War · Of extermination — Of extermination
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
