y) at six in the morning, and had southed at
twelve of noon; it had not set until twelve of the night. The register
of work done, shown by all our clocks and watches, would be double for
the afternoon what it had been for the morning. And if all our clocks
and watches did thus register upon some occasion twice the interval
between noon and sunset that they had registered between sunrise and
noon, we should be justified in recording, as the writer of the book of
Joshua has recorded, "The sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and
hasted not to go down about a whole day."

The real difficulty to the understanding of this narrative has lain in
the failure of commentators to put themselves back into the conditions
of the Israelites. The Israelites had no time-measurers, could have had
no time-measurers. A sundial, if any such were in existence, would only
indicate the position of the sun, and therefore could give no evidence
in the matter. Beside, a sundial is not a portable instrument, and
Joshua and his men had something more pressing to do than to loiter
round it. Clepsydrae or clocks are of later date, and no more than a
sundial are they portable. Many comments, one might almost say most
comments on the narrative, read as if the writers supposed that Joshua
and his men carried stop-watches, and that their chief interest in the
whole campaign was to see how fast the sun was moving. Since they had no
such methods of measuring time, since it is not possible to suppose that
over and above any material miracle that was wrought, the mental miracle
was added of acquainting the Israelites for this occasion only with the
Copernican system of astronomy, all that the words of the narrative can
possibly mean is, that--

"the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to
go down about a whole day,"

according to the only means which the Israelites had for testing the
matter. In short, it simply states in other words, what, it is clear
from other parts of the narrative, was actually the case, that the
length of the march made between noon and sunset was equal to an
ordinary march taking the whole of a day.

If we suppose--as has been generally done, and as it is quite legitimate
to do, for all things are possible to God--that the miracle consisted in
the slackening of the rotation of the earth, what effect would have
been perceived by the Hebrews? This, and only this, that they would have
accomplished a ful