The Day the Sun Stood Still

Well, take your Bibles then and open them to the book of Joshua.

And we're going to be in chapter 10. In fact, we're going to pretty much take all of chapter 10 tonight, though there are 43 verses in the chapter.

And we're not going to look at every single verse, especially the latter part of the chapter. But we will deal with what it is about.

And so really what I want to do is, rather than reading the entire chapter here at the beginning, I want to read through to verse 15. So, Joshua chapter 10, verses 1 through 15.

Now it came to pass when Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had taken Ai and had utterly destroyed it, as he had done to Jericho and its king.

So he had done to Ai and its king. And how the inhabitants, is what he heard, how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them, that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty.

Therefore, Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, Pyram, king of Jarmuth, Japhia, king of Lachish, and Debir, king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me and help me, that we may attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel.

Therefore, the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered together and went up, they and all their armies, encamped before Gibeon and made war against it.

And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp of Gilgal, saying, Do not forsake your servants. Come up to us quickly, save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the mountains have gathered together against us.

So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. And the Lord said to Joshua, Do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand not a man of them shall stand before you.

Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal. So the Lord routed them before Israel, killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them along the road that goes to Beth-Horon, and struck them down as far as Ezka and Makedah.

And it happened as they fled before Israel and were on the descent to Beth-Horon, that the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Ezekah, and they died.

There were more who died from the hailstorm, hailstones, than the children of Israel killed with the sword. Then Joshua spoke 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, Son, stand still over Gibeon, and moon in the valley of Ajalon, or Ajalon.

So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped till the people had revenge upon their enemies. In this, is this not written in the book of Jasher?

So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.

And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal. All right, we'll stop right there, though we will kind of deal with some of the rest of the chapter when I get toward the end of this.

Now, this is an incredible story, isn't it? You know, and I say this so often, it's one of my favorite stories. There are a number of favorite stories in the book of Joshua, and this is certainly one, and I'm sure you can guess why.

You know, this whole idea of the sun and moon standing still for a day. And so that Joshua could fully engage in the battle and win the victory and so forth.

Incredible story. And it's safe to say, by the way, that this story is one of the most amazing things that has ever, ever happened in the history of mankind.

You say, well, that's a pretty big statement. Well, it's safe to say that, I say, because of what the Bible says about it. And verse 14 is key. Let me remind you again what it says.

Verse 14, And there has been no day like that. This is what God said. There has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.

So, then it's safe to say, isn't it, that this is the most amazing thing that has ever happened in the history of mankind. And really, you know, if we just simply key in on that one miracle about the sun and the moon standing still, and we could come close to agreeing with that, and really we ought to agree with it, is what the Bible said.

One of my favorite movies, war movies, and I like war movies. How many of you like war movies? Any women out there? There are a few. You know.

One of my favorites is The Longest Day. How many of you have seen that? Great classic, host of great stars, you know, any movie that's got John Wayne in it is a good movie.

All right. Even though he just played one particular role. It's a great, great movie. And, of course, it's based upon one of the longest and bloodiest of World War II battles.

It was D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France. And, indeed, though I was not there, certainly for those who were there, it was, perhaps, the longest day they'd ever, ever experienced, if they even lived through it.

The longest day. And yet, obviously, in Joshua chapter 10, we're reading here about a day that was literally the longest day in history.

Almost a full day. It says the better part of a day. Some say it means a full day. And maybe it does. It's almost a day or a full day longer than any normal day.

Incredible. Now, this story is about more than just simply this incredible miracle. This story in chapter 10 brings together two very important realities for Israel at this time in their history.

One is a reality that dates back long before this day. and that pertains to the covenant, their covenant with God. And that, in accordance to the covenant, Israel was to conquer the entire land of Canaan.

All right, so that's been in play all along, hasn't it? Even before they came to the Jordan River, even before they crossed over into the land, this has been the prime reality of their lives.

Conquest of the promised land. There's a second reality that really is relatively new for them. In fact, it became new just in the previous chapter.

And that is this covenant that they had made with the Gibeonites. We studied that last week. And so, there's this covenant.

And so, now the Gibeonites are in trouble here in chapter 10, primarily because of this covenant. And Israel is then, of course, and we talked about this last week, duty-bound, covenant-bound to come to their aid.

And so, Israel will honor both of these realities in their lives. Honoring their covenant with God and honoring their covenant with the Gibeonites.

and so, both of these things are going to be accomplished in this chapter. One of them, one of these realities did not have to happen.

It was a part of their disobedience and yet God is going to hold them to it. And isn't it amazing that even in some of the mistakes we make, wrong decisions we make, even those times we step out of God's will and commit ourselves and God holds us responsible, that God even uses that to be in perfect sync, in tune with His overall purpose, not only for us, but His greater purpose for this world.

And that's what's happening here in chapter 10. Now, we get to the text. There are three major divisions, or at least I see three major divisions.

Some would divide it in more than three, into more than three, but here are three. The first one is a malicious opposition. There's a malicious opposition that is standing now first against the Gibeonites, but in reality because they are in the land, they are the opposition against Israel.

So we have this malicious opposition and we'll look at that here in verses 1 through 7. And then from there we have the part that we really like about this entire chapter and that is this miraculous intervention.

this miraculous intervention. And we'll actually see more than one miracle here. There are three. And then finally, the ultimate end of all of this, the conclusion of all of this, is Israel's military domination.

Military domination of these, not only these five kings, but all of their cities and domination over the better part of the very heart of the southern portion of the land of Canaan.

And so the chapter is going to spend quite a bit of time detailing that. And that's why, you know, we're not going to really look in depth at every part of that.

All right, so these three things. First of all then, this malicious opposition in verses 1 through 7. Now, I've already read it, read those verses, so let's just kind of walk through what is happening here.

Joshua, ultimately here, is going to be facing, Joshua and all of Israel, going to be facing five, a coalition of five of the kings of the Amorites.

Now, they've already, there's already been mentioned another coalition in chapter 9, though there's not any word about any battles that took place there. Now, here, battles are going to take place, and so Joshua, ultimately, is going to be facing this coalition of five kings.

And, but the reason, why? The reason for this coalition is not really, per se, so much about Joshua and Israel, though, though these kings, starting with one particular king, has heard about their conquest.

The primary reason why there is this desire to make a coalition, is because of the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites, because the Gibeonites had made peace with Israel.

And so it begins with this king of Jerusalem. Now, at this point, don't think of Jerusalem in terms of the holy city. It's not yet that, okay? It's a Canaanite city, an Amorite city.

And, and this king, by the name of Adonai Zedek, and some of you are thinking, well, he's got part of God's name there, Adonai. Well, Adonai is not God's name. Adonai is used as a title for God, but Adonai is not a name, it is a title, and it was a, a, a word that was used by many others, and it just noted the might of this king, all right?

Adonai Zedek, the king of Jerusalem. And he was the one that was most interested in forming this coalition. And why would he want to do that, other than the fact that he was mad at the Gibeonites.

But, why would he? Because of the Gibeonites, because Gibeon was just only about six miles north of Jerusalem, and just a little bit west of Jerusalem, a very crucial place in relation to Jerusalem.

And so, when the Gibeonites made peace with the Israelites, that opened a door, a doorway for Jerusalem, or rather, for Joshua and Israel to come in.

It kind of made Jerusalem vulnerable when they, when they lost this very key city, one of the principal cities of the land. And a principal city that, that had, apparently, a great army.

Though you wouldn't think they would, based upon their deception of Israel, to make peace with them. And so, that made them vulnerable, and so, Adonai Zedek decided he would better gather together some of his compatriots, his confederates, at least gather together as many of them as he could.

And so, there were four other kings who were part of the, kind of in that area in southern, south, kind of the southern part of the land of Canaan.

And these four kings are identified there in the Bible. The king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon. And so, they went to war, not against Israel, not initially.

That was not their initial plan, though that would be ultimately their desire. They're going against Gibeon. They went to war to destroy them, to punish them, really.

Punish them because they had made a peace treaty or covenant with Israel. All right, so, well, when the stage is being set here, when the news came to Gibeon that the Amorites were banding together to destroy them, they were filled with fear.

I mean, there are five kings, five armies that have surrounded their city or are about to and they are fearful and so what are they going to do? Well, harken back to chapter 9, what happened there?

They're the servants of Israel. They've made this covenant and so they send messengers to the Jordan Valley west of them to the camp where Israel is there on the banks of Gilgal and they say effectively, help!

Help us! Come immediately and help your servants. The messengers passed on to Joshua. We're surrounded by the Amorites.

They are threatening to destroy us. Come and help us. That was the message. So what will Joshua do? I mean, he doesn't really have to do anything. You remember the Gibeonites?

They deceived Joshua and Israel. You know, I think probably we would just kind of be thinking that, well, they just ought to get what they deserve.

You know, they made their bed lying in it. They deceived Israel. They put on this elaborate ruse to trick them into making a covenant with them.

That's chapter 9. And now, here they are placing all of their faith and their fortune into the hands of Joshua. The decision of Joshua and the captains of their army and really placing their faith and fortune in Yahweh God.

What they're doing. So what will Joshua do? Well, he did the only thing that he could do. He honored the covenant. He honored the covenant. And why would he do that?

Because he's a great guy. No, more than that. Because he served a great God. And God is very serious about covenants. I think that's something we need to learn today in our culture.

About the covenant of marriage and other kinds of covenants that we may enter into. God's serious about those things. In fact, I was going to mention this last week and I just didn't think I had time.

But if you look over at 2 Samuel chapter 21. 2 Samuel chapter 21. David is now on the throne.

Saul's out of the picture but just shortly out of the picture. And notice what it says here in verse 1. 2 Samuel chapter 21. Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, and David inquired of the Lord and the Lord answered.

That is, he wanted to know the reason. What was the reason? And here's the answer. It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house because he killed the Gibeonites.

So we have the Gibeonites mentioned here again. The covenant was still in effect. Even Saul's day and David's day and on from there. So the king called the Gibeonites spoke to them.

Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel. They weren't Jews but of the remnant of the Amorites. The children of Israel had sworn protection to them. But Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.

Basically, read between the lines, he desired to make no void this covenant with the Gibeonites. Therefore, David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you?

And with what shall I make atonement that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? What are we going to do about this? See, the famine God sent upon Israel because Israel, under the leadership of Saul, had broken the covenant with the Gibeonites and sought to kill them.

And so, David wants to make this right and the logical thing is to ask the Gibeonites, What's it going to take to make this right? And, you know, the Gibeonites said to him, We will have no silver or gold from Saul or from his house as you can't buy us out here.

Nor shall you kill any man in Israel for us. That is, you know, you don't need to put a bunch of people to death in Israel. You know, tit for tat. He had so many Gibeonites killed.

You have so many Israelites killed. That kind of thing. Whatever you say, I will do for you. So he said, I will do for you. Then they answered the king, As for the man who consumed us and plotted against us, that would be Saul, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the territories of Israel, let seven men of his descendants be delivered to us and we will hang them before the Lord in Gibeah of Saul whom the Lord chose.

And the king said, I will give them. All right, I'll do it. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.

We kind of know the story of Mephibosheth. One of the first sermons I preached here. You remember that far back? It really wasn't that far back. So the king took Armani and Mephibosheth.

This is another man by the name of Mephibosheth and Saul's family. They were the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, and five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai, and anyway.

And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the hill before the Lord. So they fell, all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

The famine was ended. Now I just read all of that. It's kind of interesting. But the point being, God's serious about covenants. Very serious.

Let me just ask these seven descendants of Saul how serious God is about covenants. And he's serious about this covenant from the very beginning. And so what is Joshua going to do?

He's going to honor the covenant. And so there was a call to arms. Get, rally the troops. And Joshua responded, this plea for help, he responded with haste and with faith and obedience.

Obedience to God. And he responded also with genius, as we're going to see, though I think God is the one that's going to fight the battle for them. And it's going to ultimately lead to victory.

Victory for Joshua and Israel. Not just in behalf of Gibeah, or the Gibeonites, but in behalf of their taking a major portion, conquering a major portion of the land of Canaan.

So this campaign is more than just about Gibeon. It's very meaningful in the whole scheme of things because it represented the very, this land, these kings, these cities that will be conquered, again, represented the very heart of the southern portion of the promised land.

So this is very key. And so when Joshua and Israel fought and destroyed these five kings, they were making, then, a major inroad into their conquest of the land.

A malicious opposition. That's how all this begins. Second, and this is the part we really want to get to, the miraculous intervention. The miraculous intervention, the intervention of God.

Always remember, throughout the book of Joshua, that the battle is the Lord's. the battle is the Lord's. And that is made very clear in verse 8.

Look at it. And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them. That is, don't fear these five kings and their armies. Do not fear them, for I have, past tense, of course, in the mind of God, it's a done deal.

I have delivered them into your hand. And then this part of the promise, not a man of them, not a single one of them, shall stand before you. What could be more encouraging, just before you're about to do battle against five armies, that you will defeat them and not a single one of them will be able to stand before you.

Incredible promise. And so then, in order to bring this about, God performs not just one miracle, but three.

Three miracles. And I've named these in such a way to identify kind of the context, the area in which the miracle is performed.

And the first one is a corporeal miracle. It's earthly. God worked through the physical properties of man. Corporeal.

Corporeal. All right? Look at verse 9. Joshua, therefore, came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal.

Now, this is the first part of the miracle. First part of this first miracle, this corporeal miracle that God is actually going to work through Joshua and the armies and the men of Israel.

God, in the first part of the miracle, God gives them an incredible strength to do what they did. What did they do? Well, it's kind of difficult, maybe impossible, to get the full magnitude of what Israel did here initially, but they marched all night, the Bible says.

And so, it's a forced march, and judging geographically, they marched some 15 to 20 miles uphill all the way.

I mean, literally. They were going up and some 4,000 feet in altitude, marching over extremely rugged terrain.

This is God working in them, giving them a strength. And then comes the second part of this first miracle, and that is God also gave them the element of surprise.

When, you know, logically speaking, that this just wouldn't happen. I mean, five armies encamped around Gilgal. You think they're going to be surprised?

Don't you think they would be on the alert? And yet, they were not. Because the Bible says that they came upon them, Israel came upon them, and this word, suddenly.

Unexpectedly. They, in a sense, ambushed them. Though it was the Amorite kings and their armies who were encamped and standing still, but somehow, Israel, on the move, was able to ambush these armies.

God gave them the element of surprise. This is God working this. This is the miracle of God. And then we come to the third part of this first miracle. miracle. And it is that God actually fought the battle, fought the battle through their physical bodies.

How God, the body that God gave them. He actually fought through them. And this is very interesting in verse 10. Verse 10, even before I read it, every single verb in this verse of Scripture is in the singular.

So it's not they did such and such and such, it's he did such and such and such. Look at it. So the Lord routed them before Israel.

Who routed them? The Lord. That's easy to see. And yet it continues in the singular. Killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon.

Who killed them? The Lord did. Chased them along the road that goes to Beth Horan. Who chased them? The Lord.

We're getting it, aren't we? And struck them down as far as Azekah and Makedah. Who struck them down?

The Lord. The Lord did. All right, so it's in the singular. He, not they, he routed them, killed them, chased them, struck them down.

Was Israel doing anything? Well, yes. Yes, they were. They were engaging in the battle.

I mean, there's nothing here that says they were not. They were engaging in the battle, physically engaging in it, swinging their swords and lifting their shields and shooting their arrows and throwing their spears and whatever other instruments of warfare they had.

They were doing all those things, but God was the strength behind it all. God was actually doing it through them. Now, I know in a sense, God does that every time we do anything for the Lord, but this was a miracle in the sense that they were able to do something that really was physically impossible.

Israel, I don't think, ever fought that day, or fought any other day like they did that day. By the way, it is worded here. The Lord did this and did this and did this.

And so, a corporeal miracle. God worked through the physical bodies, the physical properties of the men of Israel, of the armies of Israel.

The second miracle is a meteorological miracle. Verse 11, God worked through the atmospheric properties of the earth.

So, he started with the flesh and blood, man working through them, and then he moves to the atmosphere of our planet, in that particular location, and he worked a miracle through it.

Verse 11, and it happened as they fled before Israel and were on the descent of Beth Horan, that the Lord cast down large hailstones.

Who did that? he cast down large hailstones from heaven on them, on the enemy, as far as Azekah, and they died.

They died, the ones who he hailed these hailstones down upon. There were, and this is interesting, there were more, there were more who died from the hailstones than the children of Israel killed with the sword.

Now, we don't know how many, but I think it's clear a whole bunch of them. This is a miracle.

You say, well, hail sometimes falls, and big hail sometimes falls, and people sometimes get hurt, and you can't explain it that way. This is a meteorological miracle. Have you ever been in a hailstorm?

I mean, where there are big hailstones? I have. I've never been hit by one. Thankfully, you know, someone came along and picked up my buddy and me, got in the car before the hail started to fall, and it broke all the windshield and glass in the car.

I can't imagine what it would be like to be out in it. And yet, I think I might have survived it. We're not just talking about even maybe some of the more freakish and extraordinary hailstorms that have occurred on the planet.

And, you know, death by hail is still a rare thing. Okay. It's a rare thing. All right, so then what do you call a hailstorm that kills thousands of your enemy and spares every one of your soldiers?

What do you call that? A miracle. It's a miracle. What? A selective hailstorm. Very much so. Well, the Lord sent those things down, you know, and so it's a miracle.

It's a miracle to bring victory to Israel. The battle is the Lord's. So we have this corporeal miracle, God working through the physical properties of man.

and then we have this meteorological miracle, God working through the atmospheric properties of our planet, and then he goes even further out, there's a celestial miracle.

Celestial miracle. God worked, actually worked in contrary to, against the synchronized properties of the universe.

I say that this is a huge miracle. Bigger than we think, I think. Verse 12, Then Joshua spoke 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, Son, he's commanding, commanding the sun, sun stand still over Gibeon, and moon in the valley of Ai-Jalon.

So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped till the people had revenge upon their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jasher? Or some translations have the book of the just man, and that would be a literal kind of translation of this.

What is that? Nobody really knows. Kind of an unknown book that mentioned a few times in the Hebrew Bible, but that doesn't matter.

Joshua, or the writer, is saying, you know, it's verified here by this account of it in this book, the book of Jasher. So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day, and there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.

And he certainly did, didn't he? I mean, in amazing, extraordinary, supernatural ways. Now what about this sun and moon standing still?

A number of theories about it. I don't mean theories about the event, but theories about what the text is talking about, what is meant there.

And I'll just mention three of those that are maybe the most popular among scholars, and really even among some very conservative scholars. first, some suggest that this text, this account here, should be understood in a figurative sense, rather than literal.

It's figurative. And so the event did not involve a miracle. And there are always those who are trying to explain away all the miracles in the Bible.

And that's basically this idea. And so they say it is suggested, these people suggest that the Lord helped Israel. This is really the main idea, that the Lord helped Israel win the battle in such an incredibly short time, a day, that it felt as though the day had been lengthened.

So it was just their impression. Joshua and the people of Israel said, man, have you ever had days like that? Generally we have days that seem, it seems they're shortened.

Wow, man, it's all gone, something shortened this day. But sometimes we just seem to get a lot done and we look at our watch, it's only five o'clock, I thought it was ten.

So it seems to us that the day has been lengthened, though that doesn't really enter our minds. But this is the suggestion here, that it seemed like the day was longer because of the great victory that God allowed them to have.

Do you like that one? Just go like that, no. Second, some scholars take the language, again, figuratively, but they attach, not that it's just an impression that they had, but rather a purely naturalistic explanation explanation that is interpreted wrongly, but it's a natural explanation.

And so now get this, they believe that the planet Mars, the planet Mars passed by the Earth in an unusually close orbit on that particular day, sea, and it caused the Earth to tilt a bit on its axis, just temporarily, and then it went right back after time.

And so then those people there viewed from that particular vantage point, the right geographical location, to them the sun actually would kind of hang out there in the sky longer than normal.

That's a good one, isn't it? Third, some suggest that only a local miracle took place.

So there are some that, all right, okay, it was a miracle, it was just local. And so there was some miracle with the sun rays, that the sun rays, the light of the sun may have been refracted miraculously so that they gave every appearance of daylight, illumination, in that particular area when in reality the sun had already slipped below the horizon.

So though the sun had already set, God miraculously bent the light of it into that area so that they could still see and so the battle could continue on and Joshua and Israel could win the battle.

I don't like that one either. Even though there's still an admission of some kind of miracle.

Fourth is to just take it the way the Bible says it. Why is it that we, not we, hopefully not you, why is it so many want to go to great length to explain something when it's just easiest to take it just at face value, just exactly what God said.

Do you think it's any harder for him to do something amazing? And so the fourth idea of course is that we should take this language literally, exactly the way the Bible presents it, and then therefore to accept that the sun was indeed halted and the moon halted miraculously.

By the way, when the sun is setting, what really is moving? The earth. So the earth would have to stop.

It says the moon stopped, so the moon would have to stop. And if the sun, the earth and the moon stopped revolving for a time, or spinning rather, for a time, then the entire solar system had to have stopped for a time.

And if the solar system stopped for, you know, a 24-hour period, then, and scientists agree that, you know, everything is moving in some kind of orderly fashion.

So our entire galaxy would have to have stopped for a time. And there are an infinitesimal, infinitum, whatever the word is, uncountable galaxies out there in the universe, and it all must have stopped.

Henry Morris said that since the account says that the moon also stood still, it may be that the entire solar system stopped in its tracks for a day with all relative positions, positions and motions, simply suspended for 24 hours or thereabouts.

planets, meaning the entire universe, every planetary body, every star, everything came to a halt for that time.

You can't have part of it stopping and not all of it stopping. And so is that possible for God to do? Of course it is.

I know you've all heard, you know, that speculation or some story about scientists getting on their computer and being able to go back and they found a missing day. You ever heard that?

It's really, really not true. There aren't any computers that can do that. However, there is a calendar, the Chaldean calendar.

And I'll just read what this one scholar said. Using an ancient Chaldean calendar system, which was built around lunar and solar eclipses, it is possible to count forward to this day and find that this day fell on Tuesday, July 22nd.

However, if we count backward using the system of reckoning days, we find that the event happened on July 22nd on a Wednesday.

So there's a problem. Count forward it's Tuesday, count backward it's Wednesday. There's a problem, isn't there? We have a missing day. Entire missing day.

Where did it go? Well, God stopped everything for a day. And, you know, since God created the universe, and God created all the laws that govern the universe, He created all those laws so that everything works in perfect sync and in order, perfect order.

God did all that, then He can certainly set aside those laws for however long He wants to. And He can do so for His own purpose. We even have Jesus on this planet during His ministry altering or superintending the laws that He Himself had created.

He walked on water. It's not physically possible. He divided matter, that little boy's lunch, and made more matter.

God can do that. He controls, He can control what He creates. So there is then this malicious opposition, the miraculous intervention, and then one more, and I'll just kind of mention it, we're out of time, you can go read it yourself, a military domination.

And so from 16, verse 16, all the way to the end of the chapter, you have, of course, Joshua dealing with the five kings. It's an interesting story, they took tail and ran and hid in a cave, and they were discovered, and Joshua held them in that cave until everything was done, and then he comes back and deals with those kings.

And then it'll go on to chronicle, kind of give a summation of the conquest against the major cities of this southern portion of the land of Canaan, and to reveal absolute, utter dominion over this land.

It's interesting that when he brought those kings out of the cave, out of their captivity, he had them lie down on the ground, and his captains put their foot on their necks, reveal victory, signify victory, conquest, dominion.

and then as a symbol of his ultimate dominion over their cities, and all of the land that pertain to that domination.

Thank you.