"God stopped the sun so Israel could keep killing"

The Book of Joshua contains one of the most extraordinary miracle claims in the Hebrew Bible: God stopping the sun in the sky so that Joshua and the Israelites could have more daylight to continue killing their enemies. According to Joshua 10:12-14, during a battle against an Amorite coalition, Joshua commanded the sun to stand still over Gibeon, and God complied, extending the day so the slaughter could continue.¹ The text explicitly states that this miracle occurred so Israel could "take vengeance on their enemies," presenting a deity who manipulates cosmic forces specifically to facilitate massacre.¹ This passage raises profound questions about the moral character of the God depicted in the Bible, the scientific plausibility of the event, and the historical reliability of the entire conquest narrative.

What the text actually says

The miracle occurs in the context of a battle at Gibeon. The Gibeonites, having made a treaty with Israel, were attacked by a coalition of five Amorite kings. Joshua marched through the night from Gilgal to defend them, and God intervened in the battle with a devastating hailstorm that killed more enemies than the Israelite swords.² But apparently this was not enough. Joshua then issued his famous command.

"At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.' And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on its enemies." Joshua 10:12-13a¹

The text continues with explicit emphasis on the uniqueness and purpose of this event.

"Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD was fighting for Israel." Joshua 10:13b-14¹

The passage cites the Book of Jashar (also spelled Jasher), a lost ancient Hebrew text that is referenced twice in the Hebrew Bible.³ This book is no longer extant, though numerous forgeries claiming to be the lost book have appeared over the centuries.³ The reference suggests that the Joshua author drew upon earlier poetic or historical sources when composing this account.

The Hebrew verb translated "stand still" is damam (דָּמַם), which can mean "to be silent," "to be still," or "to cease."⁴ Some scholars have argued this could mean the sun "ceased shining" rather than "stopped moving," potentially describing an eclipse rather than an arrest of celestial motion.⁵ However, the traditional reading takes the text at face value: the sun remained in the sky for an extended period so that daylight would continue during the battle.

The purpose of the miracle

What makes this passage particularly morally significant is its explicit statement of purpose. The sun did not stand still to save lives, protect the innocent, or bring peace. It stood still so that killing could continue. The text states clearly that this occurred "until the nation took vengeance on its enemies."¹ The Hebrew word translated "vengeance" is naqam (נָקַם), which carries connotations of punishment, revenge, and retribution.⁶

The context makes the nature of this "vengeance" unmistakably clear. The Amorites were fleeing. They were not attacking; they were running away. According to the narrative, God had already killed more of them with hailstones than the Israelites had killed with swords.² The battle was won. Yet the miracle extended daylight specifically so that more of the fleeing enemy could be hunted down and killed. This is not defensive warfare; it is the pursuit and slaughter of a routed army.

The theological implication is that God actively participated in and prolonged a massacre. Divine power was not exercised to heal, rescue, or reconcile, but to extend the hours available for killing. The text presents this as praiseworthy, as evidence of God's power and faithfulness to Israel. Verse 14 explicitly celebrates that "the LORD was fighting for Israel."¹

The campaign that followed

The sun miracle was not an isolated incident but the prelude to a campaign of systematic annihilation. Immediately following the miracle, Joshua 10 describes the destruction of seven cities in rapid succession, with a formulaic refrain that emphasizes total destruction.⁷

Cities destroyed in Joshua's southern campaign⁷

The Hebrew term for this complete destruction is herem (חֵרֶם), often translated as "devoted to destruction" or "under the ban."⁸ In the context of warfare, herem meant the total annihilation of a conquered population as a religious offering to God. Men, women, children, and often livestock were killed, with nothing kept as spoil.⁸ The Book of Joshua presents this practice as divinely commanded and approved.

Joshua 10:40 summarizes the campaign: "So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the LORD God of Israel commanded."⁹ The text is explicit that this was not mere military conquest but religiously mandated genocide, carried out at God's direct command.

The geocentric worldview

The Joshua passage reflects the cosmological assumptions of the ancient Near East, in which the Earth was understood to be stationary at the center of the cosmos, with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around it.¹⁰ The command "Sun, stand still" presupposes that the sun normally moves across the sky; stopping it would naturally extend daylight.

Biblical cosmology, like that of neighboring Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures, typically envisioned the universe as a flat, disc-shaped Earth floating on water, with a solid dome (the firmament) above holding back celestial waters.¹⁰ The sun, moon, and stars were attached to or moved across this dome. Within this framework, commanding the sun to stop makes intuitive sense: you are ordering a moving object to cease its motion.

This passage was historically significant in the Galileo affair of the seventeenth century. When Galileo Galilei advocated for the heliocentric model proposed by Copernicus, in which Earth revolves around a stationary sun, religious authorities cited Joshua 10 as biblical proof that the sun moves and the Earth is stationary.¹¹ The Catholic Church's condemnation of heliocentrism rested partly on the plain reading of this text. If the sun could be commanded to "stand still," it must normally be in motion.

We now know that what appears to be the sun's movement across the sky is actually caused by Earth's rotation on its axis. The sun does not orbit Earth; Earth rotates while orbiting the sun. For daylight to be extended as the passage describes, it would not be the sun that needed to stop moving, but Earth that needed to stop rotating. This distinction has profound implications for understanding what the miracle would physically require.

The physics of stopping Earth

If we take the Joshua passage literally as describing an actual physical event, we must consider what would happen if Earth's rotation suddenly stopped or slowed dramatically. The consequences would be catastrophic on a global scale, incompatible with life as we know it.¹²

At the equator, Earth's surface rotates at approximately 1,670 kilometers per hour (about 1,040 miles per hour).¹³ The angular momentum of this rotation represents an enormous amount of energy. The conservation of angular momentum, a fundamental principle of physics, means that this energy cannot simply disappear.¹⁴ If Earth's rotation were suddenly halted, the momentum of everything on and in Earth would continue forward at the planet's rotational velocity.

Earth's equatorial rotation speed compared to other phenomena^{13, 15}

The atmosphere would continue moving at its original velocity while the ground beneath it stopped, generating winds far exceeding any recorded in history. At the equator, this would mean supersonic wind speeds capable of stripping the surface of soil, vegetation, buildings, and all living things.¹² No structure built by ancient or modern humans could withstand such forces. Every city, every army, every person on the surface of the Earth would be destroyed instantly.

The oceans would behave similarly. Water, possessing tremendous momentum, would continue moving east at enormous velocity even as the ocean floor stopped. The resulting tsunamis would dwarf anything in recorded history, with water surging across coastlines and inundating entire continents.¹² Additionally, Earth's equatorial bulge, maintained by centrifugal force from its rotation, would collapse. Ocean waters would migrate toward the poles, dramatically reshaping all coastlines and submerging vast areas of land.¹³

Earth's magnetic field, generated by the movement of molten iron in the planet's outer core, depends on the planet's rotation. Stopping this rotation would disrupt or eliminate the magnetic field that shields life from harmful solar radiation.¹² Without this protection, solar wind and cosmic radiation would bombard the surface, sterilizing the planet.

The Joshua narrative describes an extended day during which a battle continued normally, with soldiers fighting, fleeing, and being killed. None of the catastrophic effects that physics predicts are mentioned. The text assumes that stopping the sun (or Earth) would simply extend daylight without any other consequences. This is consistent with the ancient understanding that the sun was a light moving across the sky, not with the modern understanding of planetary physics.

Apologetic interpretations

Recognizing the scientific problems with a literal reading, various interpreters have proposed alternative explanations for the Joshua passage. These attempts to reconcile the text with modern knowledge reveal the tension between biblical literalism and scientific understanding.

The eclipse theory

Some scholars have proposed that the Hebrew verb damam should be translated as "be dark" or "cease shining" rather than "stand still."⁵ On this reading, Joshua was not asking for the sun to stop moving but for the sun to stop shining, which could describe a solar eclipse. A 2017 study by Cambridge researchers proposed that an annular solar eclipse occurred on October 30, 1207 BCE, which they suggested might be the event described in Joshua.⁵

However, this interpretation faces significant difficulties. The text says the sun stood still "in the midst of heaven" for "about a whole day," which is incompatible with an eclipse lasting only minutes.¹ Additionally, if Joshua wanted darkness to confuse the enemy, why command both the sun and moon to stop? During a solar eclipse, the moon is positioned between the Earth and sun; commanding both to be "still" or "dark" simultaneously makes no physical sense for an eclipse.⁴ Furthermore, the stated purpose was to extend time for killing, which requires daylight, not darkness.

The local miracle theory

Some apologists suggest that God performed a localized miracle, perhaps refracting light to extend the appearance of daylight in the Gibeon region without actually stopping Earth's rotation. On this view, the text describes the appearance of extended daylight from Joshua's perspective, not a global astronomical event.

This interpretation does reduce the physical implausibility but does not eliminate it. Any mechanism that extended visible daylight for "about a whole day" would require extraordinary manipulation of light on a massive scale. More importantly, the text itself claims cosmic significance: "There has been no day like it before or since."¹ The author seems to intend a claim about actual celestial phenomena, not optical illusions.

The poetic language theory

Other interpreters argue that the passage is poetic rather than literal. The command appears in what may be quoted poetry from the Book of Jashar, and ancient victory hymns often employed cosmic hyperbole.³ On this reading, saying the sun "stood still" is poetic language for a great military victory, similar to phrases like "the stars fought from heaven" in Judges 5:20.¹⁶

This interpretation has scholarly support, as the passage does contain features consistent with ancient Hebrew poetry.⁴ However, it raises questions about why the prose framework (verses 13b-14) goes to such lengths to emphasize the historical uniqueness and literal truth of the event. Saying there was never a day like it "before or since" when God heeded a man's voice suggests the author intended readers to understand an actual miracle, not metaphor.

The divine omnipotence defense

Some believers simply assert that God, being omnipotent, could have stopped Earth's rotation while suspending all the catastrophic physical consequences. God could have held the atmosphere in place, prevented the oceans from surging, maintained the magnetic field, and otherwise ensured that the only effect was extended daylight.

While logically possible for an omnipotent being, this defense multiplies miracles beyond what the text describes. The passage mentions only that the sun stood still; it does not mention God simultaneously performing dozens of additional miracles to prevent planetary destruction. If we must invent unmentioned miracles to make the text coherent, we have effectively admitted that the text as written does not cohere with physical reality.

The archaeological evidence

Beyond the physical implausibility of the miracle, the historical accuracy of the conquest narrative itself is seriously questioned by archaeological evidence. The consensus among secular archaeologists is that the events narrated in Joshua do not have a solid historical basis.¹⁷

The Book of Joshua describes a rapid military conquest of Canaan, with city after city falling to Israelite forces. However, excavations at sites mentioned in Joshua have often failed to find evidence of destruction in the appropriate time period. Of the more than thirty sites mentioned as conquered in Joshua, only three or four show archaeological signs of destruction at the right time.¹⁷

Most notably, Jericho, which Joshua describes as destroyed after its walls miraculously collapsed, shows no evidence of fortification walls in the late thirteenth century BCE when the conquest supposedly occurred.¹⁸ Similarly, Ai, whose destruction is described in detail in Joshua 8, had been uninhabited for centuries before the supposed conquest date.¹⁸

The emerging archaeological consensus suggests that ancient Israelite culture developed from within Canaanite civilization rather than arriving through military invasion from outside.¹⁸ New villages appearing in the central hill country during the Iron Age (twelfth and eleventh centuries BCE) show cultural continuity with Canaanite material culture, not a sharp break indicative of foreign conquest.¹⁸

The Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian inscription from 1207 BCE, provides the earliest known reference to "Israel" as a people group in Canaan.¹⁹ Notably, the stele refers to Israel not as a territorial state but as a people, suggesting a group still in formation rather than a conquering army that had already seized the land.

This archaeological context raises the possibility that the Book of Joshua is not historical reportage but ideological literature composed centuries after the events it purports to describe. Many scholars date the final composition of Joshua to the seventh century BCE, during the reign of King Josiah, as part of a larger Deuteronomistic history intended to promote religious reform and national identity.¹⁷

The moral problem

Whether or not the events of Joshua 10 actually occurred, the passage presents a portrait of God that raises fundamental moral questions. The deity depicted here uses supernatural power specifically to extend a massacre. The purpose of the miracle is not healing, not protection, not salvation, but killing.

The passage cannot be dismissed as describing ordinary warfare, regrettable but sometimes necessary. It describes divine intervention to prolong slaughter beyond what natural daylight would allow. The Amorites were already defeated and fleeing; the hailstorm had already killed many.² The miracle served no defensive purpose. It served only to ensure that more of the routed enemy could be hunted down and killed before darkness fell.

Furthermore, the chapter goes on to describe the execution of the five kings, who had been trapped in a cave. After the battle, Joshua had the kings brought out, had his commanders place their feet on the kings' necks in a humiliation ritual, then killed them and hung their bodies on trees until evening.²⁰ This is followed by the annihilation of seven cities with "no survivors."⁷

The moral questions are stark. If deliberately extending a massacre is wrong, how is it made right by God's involvement? If collective punishment is unjust, how does divine sanction transform it into justice? If the wholesale slaughter of populations, including presumably women, children, and non-combatants, constitutes evil when humans do it, in what sense is it good when God commands it?

These questions lead directly to the Euthyphro dilemma: is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?²¹ If the former, then "good" becomes an empty term meaning only "whatever God does," and the massacre at Gibeon is good by definition. If the latter, then there must be some standard of goodness independent of God's commands by which divine actions can be evaluated, and that standard would seem to condemn using cosmic power to extend slaughter.

The pattern of divine violence

Joshua 10 is not an isolated episode but part of a consistent pattern throughout the Book of Joshua. The entire book describes a military campaign in which God fights for Israel, often through supernatural means, and in which conquered populations are systematically annihilated.

The book opens with the fall of Jericho, where "they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword."²² The destruction of Ai follows similar lines: "When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it with the edge of the sword."²³ The conquest of the northern cities follows the same pattern: "And they struck with the sword all the souls that were in it, devoting them to destruction; there was none left who breathed."²⁴

Scholars have characterized this practice as herem, the devotion of conquered peoples and their possessions to total destruction as a religious offering.⁸ While some scholars dispute whether the term "genocide" should be applied to these ancient texts, others note that the descriptions meet modern definitions of the term: the systematic killing of a national, ethnic, or religious group.²⁵ Whatever terminology is preferred, the descriptions are of mass slaughter presented as divinely commanded and approved.

The sun standing still at Gibeon thus serves as a supernatural punctuation mark on a broader campaign of violence. God's participation is not limited to this one miracle; throughout Joshua, God is depicted as an active combatant fighting for Israel through natural disasters, miraculous interventions, and direct commands to destroy. The extended day at Gibeon merely makes explicit what the entire book implies: divine power is deployed in service of conquest and killing.

Implications

Joshua 10:12-14 confronts readers with a cluster of problems that cannot be easily resolved. The passage presents a miracle that is physically impossible as described, occurring within a conquest narrative that lacks archaeological support, depicting a deity who extends daylight specifically to prolong massacre.

For those who approach the Bible as literal history, the passage requires either believing that God suspended the laws of physics on a global scale to facilitate killing, or accepting one of the various reinterpretations that reduce the miracle to something less than what the text appears to claim. Neither option is without significant difficulties.

For those who read Joshua as ancient literature rather than history, the passage still raises theological questions. Even as mythology or ideological narrative, it depicts the God of Israel as a deity who uses cosmic power in service of violence. Whether or not the sun actually stood still, the biblical authors believed their God was the kind of deity who would stop the sun to extend a slaughter. This is the God they worshiped and commended to future generations.

The passage thus serves as a lens through which to examine broader questions about the moral character of the God depicted in the Hebrew Bible. If the divine nature is truly loving, just, and good, how did ancient Israelite authors come to portray God as an active participant in genocide? And if these portrayals are accurate representations of God's character, what does that imply about the nature of biblical morality itself?