Joshua 10 records the battle of Gibeon. Joshua led the Israelites in defending the Gibeonites against a coalition of five Amorite kings. During this time, God miraculously made the sun and the moon stand still and unleashed massive hailstones from the sky that killed the enemy armies.

Not everyone who believes the Bible to be the Word of God views this occurrence as a truly miraculous event, but rather as a poetic expression of battle justice. Those who hold to it as a poetic expression still argue that it is the Lord's miraculous deliverance of Israel, not a literal astrophysical occurrence.

This article will examine the different views of this phenomenological experience and answer whether the sun literally stood still in the sky on this day.

The four views on what happened that day.

There are four views of what happened on this day when Joshua said the sun stood still. The first view denotes that it literally occurred. Many scholars and astrophysicists would argue that this global event would disrupt Earth's entire atmosphere and plunge the globe into cosmic disarray; thus, many dismiss this as the mechanism by which it occurred.

The second view is called the literary and phenomenological approach. Many scholars and theologians argue that the passage uses phenomenological language, meaning that the events described in Joshua 10 were described as they appeared to the human eye. This would be like how humanity, through the ages, has referred to the sun as "rising" and "setting," even though the sun itself never moves. It is the position of the earth and the viewer's perspective at that time that determines the language used.

The third view is called the spiritual or typological approach. This view reads the Old Testament physical battles as types or shadows of spiritual realities. The enemies of Israel represent sin, spiritual darkness, or internal flaws, while Joshua foreshadows Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. This view would eliminate the need to reconcile the language of Joshua 10 with the complications that arise from a literal view of the sun standing still.

The fourth view is called the ethical and redemptive-historical approach. This view wrestles with the moral difficulty of the "holy war" and the destruction of the Canaanites. It attempts to contextualize these commands within the overarching story of the Bible, explaining that God's judgment on the Canaanites was a response to their extreme moral corruption and idolatry rather than arbitrary violence. This view doesn't really address whether the sun standing still was literal or metaphorical, but rather focuses on the moral dilemma posed by the details of Joshua's destruction of the Canaanites at the command of God.

The problem with simply calling it a metaphor.

For the sake of brevity, one could say that the occurrence was "metaphorical", thereby eliminating the need to address the tension of how such a miraculous event could have occurred without upsetting the apple cart of the global dynamics at play in the rotation of the earth. The problem with this brief explanation to avoid the tension is that nowhere in the text does it indicate that the author was referring to something metaphorical.

Whenever a metaphor is used, a "comparison" occurs. It could be deemed hyperbolic and overemphasized to make the point. There is no way to prove or disprove this as the intent of the author. But it is possible to take the author at face value and assume the language to be "literal" in nature, but the burden is on the reader or the one who interprets it accordingly to explain how such a phenomenon could have occurred without upsetting the entire global rotation of the earth.

If it was literal, what else would have to happen?

It is possible to say, "it was a miracle," but then it is important to explain the secondary miracles that would have had to occur for it to have been truly global. For the sun to stand still in Joshua 10 through a literal halt of Earth's rotation, God or an advanced intelligence would need to simultaneously perform dozens of secondary planetary, thermodynamic, and electromagnetic miracles to prevent the planet's immediate annihilation.

Here are the other miracles that would need to occur for the sun to stand still. First off, the inertial miracle, meaning the whole earth would have to stop at once for this to occur. Second, the hydrodynamic miracle, meaning the oceans would have to be artificially held in place. Third, the tectonic miracle, meaning a synchronized fluid-dynamic halt, would need to occur. Without this, the friction between the moving mantle/core and the stationary crust would tear the continents apart. It would trigger unprecedented volcanic eruptions and earthquakes measuring well off the Richter scale. The entire planet's interior would need to be frozen in place and thawed simultaneously without generating heat.

The fourth miracle would be electromagnetic, meaning the earth would need an artificial magnetic shield. Halting the core's rotation would cause the geodynamo to collapse, dropping the protective magnetic shield. This would unleash solar winds and cosmic radiation, thus triggering the eventual demise of all life on Earth.

The final miracle that would need to occur for the earth to have stood still in Joshua 10 is thermodynamic in nature. Halting kinetic energy on a planetary scale generates an incomprehensible amount of heat. This heat would raise the global temperature by thousands of degrees, instantly vaporizing the oceans and melting the crust. This heat would need to be supernaturally extracted into a vacuum or non-existent dimension.

What if it was a miracle — but a local one?

As one can see, for the sun to literally stand still in Joshua 10, God would also need to perform a series of other miracles so that the earth remained intact after this miraculous occurrence. And for the record, the God who spoke the world into existence can do as He desires. He governs all the laws and controls all the outcomes. But what if the occurrence was from the perspective of the eye? What if this were a miracle that eliminated the need for a series of other miracles globally to make it happen? What if the writer, Joshua, is recording what he experienced? What if Joshua is looking up into the sky and recording what he saw occur?

Because a literal halt requires a cascade of thousands of sub-miracles to prevent planetary destruction, physicists and theologians often note that a "Long Day" could be achieved far more cleanly with a single, localized miracle instead. Is it possible that, from his perspective, Joshua experienced a miracle, yet it was not the global phenomenon readers today might conclude? Is it possible that a miracle occurred, but the other miracles were not needed to establish it as a true miracle?

How a localized miracle could work.

This localized miracle would be a miracle nonetheless, but it would not require all the other miracles to occur for this one to be true. The localized miracle would need the help of a gravitational lens, meaning the bending of space-time or creating a massive, invisible gravitational gradient just outside Earth's atmosphere. This would act as a cosmic mirror, refracting sunlight around the curvature of the Earth and directly onto the Valley of Aijalon, keeping it illuminated while the planet spins normally.

This miracle would also require a localized, supernatural manipulation of the atmosphere's refractive index, bending daylight backward so the sun appears stationary exclusively to the combatants in Canaan. These two requirements would enable this miracle to occur and would allow Joshua to experience it as if the sun did stand still. This may or may not be how it occurred, but it is a logical, miraculous explanation that would make this a localized miracle, enabling Joshua to record it in Joshua 10 as an authentic miracle.

So, did the sun stand still?

So, did the sun stand still in Joshua 10? Yes, from Joshua's perspective, it did. God did a miracle for Joshua and saved the Gibeonites through his leadership. The good news is that God still performs the same types of miracles today for His leaders and His people. He's just that great.