l day's march in the course of the afternoon. And what
would have been the effects produced on all the neighbouring nations?
Simply that they had managed to do more work than usual in the course of
that afternoon, and that they felt more than usually tired and hungry in
the evening.

But would it have helped the Israelites for the day to have been thus
actually lengthened? Scarcely so, unless they had been, at the same
time, endowed with supernatural, or at all events, with unusual
strength. The Israelites had already been 31 hours without sleep or
rest, they had made a remarkable march, their enemies had several miles
start of them; would not a longer day have simply given the latter a
better chance to make good their flight, unless the Israelites were
enabled to pursue them with unusual speed? And if the Israelites were so
enabled, then no further miracle is required; for them the sun would
have "hasted not to go down about a whole day."

Leaving the question as to whether the sun appeared to stand still
through the temporary arrest of the earth's rotation, or through some
exaltation of the physical powers of the Israelites, it seems clear,
from the foregoing analysis of the narrative, that both the prose
account and the poem were written by eye-witnesses, who recorded what
they had themselves seen and heard whilst every detail was fresh in
their memory. Simple as the astronomical references are, they are very
stringent, and can only have been supplied by those who were actually
present.

Nothing can be more unlike poetic hyperbole than the sum of actual
miles marched to the men who trod them; and these very concrete miles
were the gauge of the lapse of time. For just as "nail," and "span," and
"foot," and "cubit," and "pace" were the early measures of small
distance, so the average day's march was the early measure of long
distance. The human frame, in its proportions and in its abilities, is
sufficiently uniform to have furnished the primitive standards of
length. But the relation established between time and distance as in the
case of a day's march, works either way, and is employed in either
direction, even at the present day. When the Israelites at the end of
their campaign returned from Makkedah to Gibeon, and found the march,
though wholly unobstructed, was still a heavy performance for the whole
of a long day, what could they think, how could they express themselves,
concerning that same march made between