r. Bernard, and approve of Josephus's
interpretation of Gilgal for liberty. See Joshua 5:9.

[7] Whether this lengthening of the day, by the standing still of the
sun and moon, were physical and real, by the miraculous stoppage of the
diurnal motion of the earth for about half a revolution, or whether only
apparent, by aerial phosphori imitating the sun and moon as stationary
so long, while clouds and the night hid the real ones, and this
parhelion or mock sun affording sufficient light for Joshua's pursuit
and complete victory, [which aerial phosphori in other shapes have been
more than ordinarily common of late years,] cannot now be determined:
philosophers and astronomers will naturally incline to this latter
hypothesis. In the mean thee, the fact itself was mentioned in the book
of Jasher, now lost, Joshua 10:13, and is confirmed by Isaiah, 28:21,
Habakkuk, 3:11, and by the son of Sirach, Ecclus. 46:4. In the 18th
Psalm of Solomon, yet it is also said of the luminaries, with relation,
no doubt, to this and the other miraculous standing still and going
back, in the days of Joshua and Hezekiah, "They have not wandered, from
the day that he created them; they have not forsaken their way, from
ancient generations, unless it were when God enjoined them [so to do] by
the command of his servants." See Authent. Rec. part i. p. 154. [8] Of
the books laid up in the temple, see the note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 1.
sect. 7.

[9] Since not only Procopius and Suidas, but an earlier author, Moses
Chorenensis, p. 52, 53, and perhaps from his original author Mariba
Carina, one as old as Alexander the Great, sets down the famous
inscription at Tangier concerning the old Canaanites driven out of
Palestine by Joshua, take it here in that author's own words: "We are
those exiles that were governors of the Canaanites, but have been driven
away by Joshua the robber, and are come to inhabit here." See the note
there. Nor is it unworthy of our notice what Moses Chorenensis adds,
p. 53, and this upon a diligent examination, viz. that "one of those
eminent men among the Canaanites came at the same thee into Armenia, and
founded the Genthuniaa family, or tribe; and that this was confirmed
by the manners of the same family or tribe, as being like those of the
Canaanites."

[10] By prophesying, when spoken of a high priest, Josephus, both here
and frequently elsewhere, means no more than consulting God by Urim,
which the reader is still to bear