Boiling a Kid in his Mother's milk?
The law of Exodus 23:19 and Deut.14:21
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YOU SHALL NOT BOIL A KID IN ITS MOTHER'S MILK (From "Bible Review" - 1985) by Jacob Milgrom A PUZZLING VERSE One of the oldest prohibitions in the entire Bible is the injunction against boiling a kid in the milk of its mother. It is repeated three times in identical words: "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk." From these words, the rabbis extrapolated a complex set of dietary laws, which to this day prohibit observant Jews from mixing foods containing milk or milk by-products with foods containing meat. The prohibition against mixing milk and meat is an essential element of the dietary laws of kashrut it is a significant part of what it means to "keep kosher." Yet the basis for the biblical prohibition itself is elusive. Why would the ancient Israelites even have contemplated boiling a kid in its mother's milk? The cognoscenti know how modern archaeology has solved the puzzle. It is a beautiful story, especially because the archaeological solution was presaged by a famous medieval Jewish exegete, Maimonides, who somehow managed to intuit from the text itself the same solution archaeology produced centuries later. In 1195, Maimonides suggested: "As for the prohibition against eating meat [boiled] in milk, it is in my opinion not improbable that - in addition to this being undoubtedly very gross food and very filling - idolatry had something to do with it. Perhaps such food was eaten at one of the ceremonies of their cult or one of their festivals" (The Guide to the Perplexed 111:48). Maimonides admitted, however, that he could find no support for his theory: "[Although] this is the most probable view regarding the reasons for this prohibition... I have not seen this set down in any of the books of the Sabeans [pagans] that I have read." ARCHAEOLOGY On May 14, 1929, at a site in Syria that we now call Ugarit and that the local Arabs call Ras Sharma, French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer was excavating a room that turned out to be a royal library. On that day he uncovered the first of more than a thousand cuneiform tablets from about the 14th century B.C., written in a hitherto unknown script consisting of only about 30 signs - a kind of cuneiform alphabet. Most of the tablets are typical of a state archive- administrative texts, censors lists, economic texts and letters. But the cache also included literary, mythological and religious texts. Some of these tablets are of a more ritual character, illuminating the daily practice of religion in ancient Canaan. One scholar refers to a series of tablets relating to the Canaanite god Ba'al, whose worship is so frequently condemned in the Bible, as a "Canaanite Bible." One of these tablets describes an obscure Canaanite religious ritual. The tablet was first published in 1933 by Charles Virolleaud, the local director of antiquities at Ugarit, who later became instrumental in the decipherment and publication of the Ugaritic tablets. Virolleaud called the text "The Birth of the Gracious and Beautiful Gods." On one side of the tablet was a list of ritual commands; on the other was a story about some of the sexual escapades of the head of the Canaanite pantheon, the supreme god EL. In the myth related on one side of the tablet, El fathers the gracious gods, who are suckled by the goddesses Athirat (biblical Asherah) and Rahmay. Many scholars believe that the text is actually the libretto of a cultic play in which the mythological roles were played by human beings, perhaps culminating in a sacred marriage rite. Performance of the rituals prescribed by the text may have accompanied the reenactment of these mythical events. The purpose of the ritual was to ensure the land's fertility, symbolized by the birth of the good gods. A DAMAGED LINE Our present concern is with one line in this tablet. Unfortunately, this critical line is damaged. Virolleaud therefore "restored" as the scholars say - more accurately, he reconstructed - part of the text. In the following quotation, the pan in brackets is Virolleaud's reconstruction. As restated, the text reads as follows: tb[h g/d.bhIb. annh[./bhm'at. Virolleaud translated the first three words of the line this way (again the restored pan is in brackets); "Fail (cuire un chelvreau tans le lait" ("Cook a kid in milk"). A few years later, H.L.Ginsberg published several studies of this text in which he drew attention to the biblical parallels. Both the Ugaritic text and the Bible contain references to cooking a kid in milk. Ginsberg concluded that the ritual described in the Ugaritic tablet was the "same idolatrous custom that the Torah forbade." In the Canaanite ritual, the milk in which the kid was cooked symbolized the milk that the newly born gods were given when suckled by the pagan goddesses Athirst and Rahmay. The cooking of a goat in milk was forbidden in the Bible because it "symbolizes the suckling [by the pagan goddesses} of the newborn gods!" So here at last was the explanation of the biblical prohibition. Maimonides' intuition was right; the biblical prohibition was a reaction against a Canaanite ritual involving the boiling of a kid in its mother's milk. CANAANITE PAGAN RITUAL In the ensuing years, this explanation gained wide acceptance among both Ugaritic and biblical scholars, and indeed became almost a dogma of scholarship. Anton Schoors concluded that "the parallel is most striking and the biblical prohibition is certainly directed against the practice described in this text." Umberto Cassuto said, "It is clear that this was the practice of the Canaanites on one of their holidays" and we can now "guess that this custom was widespread in the ritual of the [Israelite's] pagan neighbors." And Edward Ullendorff found that the two texts "astonishing verbal resemblance helps to illuminate some of the obscurities of both: it is clear that the Pentateuch is inveighing against an obnoxious Canaanite custom, perhaps a fertility cult or some other ritually significant ceremony." Bible commentaries quickly made use of the scholars' work of illuminate this previously obscure commandment. The Interpreter's Bible, Moody Bible Institute Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Daily Study Bible, New Century Bible Commentary, Torah Bible Commentary, Bible Study Textbook Series, Old Testament Library, and other commentators, all concluded that the Ugaritic text conclusively demonstrated that the Bible prohibition was aimed at discouraging the Israelites from participating in some sort of Canaanite fertility rite. RECENT SCHOLARSHIP YES NO Recent scholarship, however, has thoroughly un-dermined this explanation. First, the most obvious problems that the Ugaritic text makes no reference to mother's milk. Even after the Ugaritic text is reconstructed, it refers only to boiling a kid in milk, not in is mother's milk. Second, the reconstruction of the Ugaritic text is almost certainly wrong. The scribes at Ugarit marked the division between words with a special symbol, a small vertical wedge, which epigraphers transliterate as a dot. There is little room in the text of our tablet both for the customary word divider and for the extra letter, h, that would allow the word Virolleaud reconstructs as "cook" actually to be read that way. Even if the h could somehow be squeezed into the line, however, the resulting word tbh never means "to cook" in Ugaritic anyway, only "to slaughter." So the text would refer to slaughtering a kid rather than to cooking it. Finally, the Ugaritic word gd doesn't mean "kid." It probably means coriander, an aromatic herb, a meaning found in the Bible. So whatever it was that happened "in milk" during the Ugaritians' ritual did not involve any cooking, and mother's milk certainly wasn't used. Moreover, whatever happened "in milk" didn't happen to a kid but to some kind of plant, probably coriander. In short, no "cooking" no milk of "is mother" and probably no "kid." There is thus no way that this Ugaritic tablet can be used to illuminate the basis for the prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk. We are left, then, with the same puzzle: what is the basis for the biblical prohibition? SO WHAT IS THE BIBLE SAYING? One intriguing possibility is that the Bible verse has a hidden purpose: it is actually directed against incest. Starting with the hypothesis that legal prohibitions often reflect society's taboos, the French diplomat-scholar Jean Soler interprets the law concerning a kid to mean: "You shall not put a mother and her son in the same pot any more than in the same bed." This explanation has one major drawback: it's not linguistically sound. In order to fit within the "incest" paradigm, we must have both a mother goat and her male offspring. But the Hebrew word for kid, "gdy" is asexual. So the prohibition, as it stands, applies to female kids as well as m males. We must therefore look for a more plausible explanation. Several exegetes have suggested that the prohibition against boiling a kid in its own mother's milk has a humanitarian basis, that it s a sort of "kindness to animals" legislation. In the end, however, this theory is also an unsatisfying solution to the crux. Those who espouse the humanitarian theory point to the biblical passages showing a special concern for the comfort and even "feelings" of animals. The Israelites are commanded to be especially sensitive to the tender relationship between a mother animal and her young. For example, animals may not be slaughtered on the same day as their offspring (Leviticus 22:28); a wild mother bird may not be taken out of her nest along with her eggs or fledglings (Deuteronomy 22:6-7); and no animal may be sacrificed to God unless it has first been given a week with is mother (Leviticus 22:27; Exodus 22:29). According to these scholars, a kid may not be boiled in its mother's milk for the same reason: to prevent cruelty to animals. The reason this solution is unsatisfactory is that, while it is true that the Bible recognizes that a mother and her young feel pain at separation, this principle is not taken to extremes. A dam and her offspring certainly can be slaughtered on consecutive days, a bird and its fledglings may be taken separately from the nest, and an eight-day-old lamb or kid may be sacrificed, even if it is still nursing. In our case, a concern about maternal sensibilities could not have given rise to the prohibited practice because the mother goat can't possibly be aware that her offspring is boiling in her milk. A second humanitarian-type motive for our biblical passage has been advanced by scholars: that its purpose was to maintain the comfort of the mother animal. This interpretation depends on a different translation of the Hebrew text, made possible once the text is freed of the incubus of the supposed "Ugaritic parallel." Under this new reading, the Israelites are commanded to make certain, when they bring their first fruits and then first-born animals to Jerusalem to sacrifice, that they do not sacrifice (by boiling) "a kid [which is yet] in the milk of its mother": in other words, still nursing, and supported solely by its mother's milk. The nursing kid prohibition so interpreted would thus be closely related to the command to refrain from sacrificing a newly born animal during the first week of its life (Leviticus 22:27; Exodus 22:29). The basis for this command is a principle of animal husbandry that would have been well known to the agricultural Israelites. Philo of Alexandria explained it this way. "During the first week after the birth of its offspring, the mother's udders are a true fountain, but [the mother] has no young ones to suck when one removes them. Since the milk fords no more exit, the teats become hard and heavy, and by the weight of the milk stuck inside they begin to hurt the mother" (Philo, De Virtute, 128-129). Thus, the prohibition may be just a shorthand reminder to the Israelites of a salutary husbandry rule set out elsewhere in the Bible; for the mother animal's comfort, her newly born offspring should not be taken away from her for sacrifice during the first week of their life, while they are still sucking their mother's milk. Again, the fatal flaw in this theory is philological - in biblical Hebrew it is not possible, as this interpretation requires, to refer to a "suckling" as one that is "in his mother's milk." THE SWISS SCHOLAR KEEL Yet another possibility has been advanced by the Swiss scholar Othmar Keel. In a new book he brings together a wealth of icono-graphic material from the ancient Near East - seals, pottery and rock tomb-paint-ings - bearing the image of a mother nursing her young. He thinks that this material has a special significance for the biblical prohibition. According to Keel, the pervasiveness of this image reflects its symbolic power for the primarily agricultural societies of the Bible: The nursing mother is a source of fertility and benevolence, and her milk is a fount of growth and new life. The symbolism takes on cosmic dimensions because the animals portrayed in this Near Eastern iconography can stand for divinities. In Ugaritic mythology, for example, the goddess Anat, daughter of El and Athirat, assumes the shape of a heifer and acts as wet nurse to the gods, as does Athirat. Both goddesses, in addition, suckle specially deserving humans who are destined for great things. The Egyptian goddess Hathor is also represented as a cow. She is depicted suckling Pharaoh Menwhotep 11 on the rock painting found at Deir elBahari. In Babylonia, the mountain goddess Ninhursag is pictured flanked by the wombs of animals, suckling a child. The nursing mother image as it appears in the art of Syro-Palestine, unlike the Ugaritic, Egyptian and Babylonian iconography, is not attributable to any particular deity. For this reason, Keel believes that the image could easily have been absorbed into the monotheism of the Israelites. A ban on seething a kid in is mother's milk makes sense against this Canaanite cultural background, for boiling a kid in the milk of is mother would be opposed to and would vitiate the life-sustaining and divinely ordained nurture inherent in all living being. ON THE RIGHT TRACK...BUT Keel is, I submit, on the right track. But his explanation is not fully satisfying. The kid of the biblical command is not being suckled; it has already been separated from is mother. The focus in the biblical verse is upon the kid, not upon the nursing mother - in fact, the mother, which under Keel's theory represents the transmission of the life-force, is totally absent. Only her milk is present. In the biblical image, we do not find the image of the suckling mother representing the transmission of the life-sustaining force proceeding from generation to generation. PHILO ... PROBABLY MORE CORRECT I believe it is more productive to take our cue from Philo, the first-century Hellenistic Jewish philosopher and exegete. As Philo put it, it is "grossly improper that the substance which fed the living animal should be used to season or flavor it after its death" (De Virtute, 13). Hence, according to Philo, the root rationale behind the kid prohibition is its opposition to commingling life and death. A substance that sustains the life of a creature (milk) should not be fused or confused with a process associated with is death (cooking). This prohibition is, thus, simply another instance of the emphasis on opposites characteristic of biblical ritual and practice: to separate life from death, holy from common, pure from impure, Israel from the nations. The reverence for life and Israel's separation from the nations are ideas reflected throughout the dietary laws. For example, the reverence or life is reflected in the blood prohibition. Separating Israel from the nations is re reflected in the prohibition against eating certain animals such as pig and crusta-ceans. Thus the prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother's milk conforms neatly with Israel's overall dietary system. The command not to boil a kid in mother's milk is first set forth in Exodus, where the context in which it appears shows that it probably applies only to kids sacrificed on one of the Israelites pilgrimage festivals. By the time the command appears again in Deuteronomy, however, it is apparent that it has been transformed into something much broader, a new dietary law. It is easy to see why this prohibition would have been so quickly integrated in the Israelites' dietary system. It bodies two common biblical themes reverence for life, even dumb animal life, and Israel's separation from the nations. This life versus-death theory also completely and neatly elucidates the other biblical prohibitions mentioned earlier that, heretofore, have been explained as having humanitarian motives. NO FUSION WITH LIFE AND DEATH However the common denominator of all these prohibitions is that they prevent the fusion of life and death. Thus, the life-giving process of the mother bird hatching or feeding her young should not be the occasion of their joint death (Deuteronomy 22:6). The sacrifice of the newborn may be inevitable, but not for the first week while it is constantly at the mother's breast (Leviticus 22:27); and never should both the mother and its young be slain at the same time (Leviticus 22:28). By the same token, mother's milk, the life-sustaining food for her kid, should never become associated with is death. Is it, then, so far-fetched for the rabbis to have deduced that all neat, not just of the kid, and all milk, not only of the mother, may not be served together? In a fundamental way, the rule encourages a reverence for life, a separation of life and death - and separates Israel from the nations. .................. I think putting it in simple terms we can deduce this from Jacob Milgrom. The new born kid, calf, sheep, should not be killed within the early new life it has, then be cooked in its mother's milk (possibly because it may give some added flavor to the meat) that it was depending on for life. As Milgron states, that would be confusing life and death, hence a teaching to instill in Israel a certain reverence for life and death - a separation of life and death, which many of the nations around them did not practice. As Milgrom has given, thus the life-giving process of the mother bird hatching or feeding her young should not be the occasion of their joint death (Deut.22:6). The sacrifice of the newborn may be inevitable, but not for the first week while it is constantly at the mother's breast (Lev.22:27); and never should both the mother and its young be slain at the same time (Lev.22:28). By the same token, the mother's milk, the life- sustaining food for her kid, should never become associated with its death - Keith Hunt Entered on this Website October 2007 JOSHUA'S LONG DAY??? An in-depth look at this day
Presented by Ralph Woodrow FOREWORD by Keith Hunt I grew up, like most of us do who are surrounded by "Christian religion" with pre-conceived ideas, taught to us as children. I was told that the sun stood still for Joshua and extended the day for many hours. I accepted this as a child without much question, after all is it possible for God to do anything, nothing is impossible for Him. And I never studied the matter of Joshua's Long Day. I never investigated the issue in any in-depth way. It was not until I was in my late 40s that I read the small book by Ralph Woodrow, which I now present to you here. For me it changed my whole understanding and concept on the so-called Long Day of Joshua. Let me say, this is not a matter of salvation, it really makes no difference if you want to believe the day was literally extended by many hours, or if you want to believe Woodrow and many others he quotes, and how they have come to view it. I personally will side with Woodrow and the others, as to the true understanding of this section of Scripture. ....... JOSHUA'S LONG DAY How Long Was it? We have all heard about the time Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and - according to the common belief - the day was extended many additional hours until the battle was won. Early settlers in the California desert were familiar with the story and are credited for naming the "Joshua tree" which reminded them of Joshua, lifting his hands, and commanding the sun to obey his words. The story has even been the basis for some pulpit humor. A man accused of bootlegging was brought before a judge. "What is your name?" "Joshua." "Are you the Joshua that made the sun stop?" "No Sir, I'm the Joshua that made the moonshine"! At the time of Galileo, much attention was focused on the Biblical account of Joshua. Galileo understood that day and night result from the earth turning on its axis - not because the sun travels around the earth. This brought him into conflict with the Romish Inquisition which threatened him with torture and life in prison. Religious leaders at the time, such as Pope Paul V, believed the sun travelled around the earth, the proof being that Joshua's command for the sun to stand still made the day longer! As well-known as the basic story about Joshua is, however, a serious study of the Biblical account reveals that what really happened has been commonly misunderstood. The traditional view is that Joshua and his men had fought all through the day until late afternoon. Seeing the sun about to set, and realizing that additional hours of daylight were required to complete the battle, Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and lo! that day was extended not just for a few extra moments, but for almost a whole day. Today, however, we all know, as Galileo did, that the length of a day is not determined by the movement of the sun. It is the earth turning on its axis that makes day and night. Consequently, the passage about Joshua making the sun stand still has puzzled and embarrassed Bible teachers who have tried to uphold the traditional view. In an attempt to harmonize the story with scientific facts, they say it was actually the earth that stopped turning, that the only reason the Biblical writer spoke of the sun standing still is because he used terms as they were understood at the time. It is pointed out that even today we use the terms "sunrise" and "sunset" even though, technically, it is not the sun that is rising or setting. But I believe there is a much better explanation. Many are surprised when it is pointed out that a hailstorm took place that day. This part of the story, though clearly stated in the text (Joshua 10:11), is not as well-known as the part about Joshua's command to the sun! Somehow the idea of Joshua praying for more daylight does not seem to fit with the sky being darkened by a massive storm!
With these thoughts as a preface, we turn to Joshua 10:12-14: Then spake Joshua 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, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord harkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel. The expressions used in this text about the sun or moon standing still are translated from two Hebrew words "daman" and "amad" in the following places: "Sun, stand still [daman] ... and the sun stood still [daman], and the moon stayed [amad]... so the sun stood still [amad]." The first word used, "daman," is given in the margin as "be silent." It has the root meaning of "to be dumb" and thus, by implication, "to stop" (Strong's Concordance, 1826). The other Hebrew word, "amad," is defined as "to stand" and is used in various relations literally and figuratively (Strong's Concordance, 5975). Within the book of Joshua it is the word used when the waters of Jordan stood upon a heap and when the priests, crossing this riverbed with the sacred ark, stood still. Though the word is used in a variety of ways, the idea of to stop or quit is evident: the waters of Jordan stopped flowing, the priests stopped marching, etc. Admittedly, both words - "daman" and "amad" - have the meaning of "TO STOP." But the question is: When Joshua commanded the sun to stop, did he mean for it to stop moving or stop shining? We believe he meant for it to STOP SHINING! The Jerome Biblical Commentary says the Hebrew meaning, as used in this context, is "stop shining," and refers to the darkening of the sun and moon. (The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p.135). "The Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Cyclopedia" cites various viewpoints regarding this passage, including that which would take these words "to signify merely cease to shine." (M'Clintock and Strong, op.cit., Vol.4, pp.1026, 1027). Many years ago an article in "Moody Monthly" presented a comparison of the Hebrew words in our text with parallel usages in ancient astronomical tablets. The conclusion presented in the article is that "stand still" makes good sense if rendered "become dark" - that the sun stopped shining, not that the whole solar system stopped for a day (Robert Dick Wilson, "What Does 'The Sun Stood Still' Mean?" in "Moody Monthly" (October 1920).
What caused the sun to stop shining? This is where the hailstorm comes in! The sun stopped shining on Gibeon because the sky was darkened with stormy clouds. In various situations the Biblical writers spoke of "a thick cloud" blotting out the light of the sun (Isaiah 44:22), of turning a day into "darkness" (Job 3:4,5), of the heavens becoming "black with clouds" (I Kings 18:45). Ezekiel spoke of God covering "the sun with a cloud," resulting in "darkness upon thy land" (Ezekiel 32:7,8). Job said, "With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt" (Job 36:32). During Paul's voyage toward Rome, for many days the sun was not seen because of storm clouds (Acts 27:20). When Joshua commanded the sun to stop shining, the storm that moved in was of such density that it cut off the sunlight from Gibeon. The attacking Amorites may have considered this a bad omen, providing at least one reason why they fled from Gibeon in terror. As they fled "the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them... and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword" (Joshua 10:11). Why did Joshua want the sun to stop shining upon Gibeon? We believe the Biblical evidence indicates this battle took place in the middle of summer and that Joshua was asking for relief from the extreme heat of the sun, certainly not for more sunlight or an extended day! HIGH NOON Contrary to the idea that the sun was about to set - and Joshua saw that he needed more hours of daylight to complete the battle - the Bible speaks of the sun as being "in the midst of heaven" (Joshua 10:13). "The Hebrew here is not the usual word for midst," says the Pulpit Commentary. "It signifies literally, the half." (Pulpit Commentary, vol.7, p.166). The Hebrew word is "chatsi" which is translated over 100 times by the word "half." The meaning is that the sun was overhead, it was high noon! The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia makes this comment: The sun to Joshua was associated with Gibeon, and the sun can naturally be associated with a locality in either of two positions: it may be overhead to the observer and considered as being above the place where he is standing or as a locality on the skyline and the sun rising or setting just behind it. But here, it was not the latter two, but at noon, literally in the halving of the heaven; that is to say, overhead. Thus Joshua was at Gibeon when he spoke (ISBE, vol.1, p. 448). It was at Gibeon that Joshua said: "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon." With the sun overhead - at noon - notice where the moon was. The description is quite precise. The moon was "in the valley of Ajalon" - not "over," but "in" the valley of Ajalon. Since Ajalon was a low pass, the declining moon above the horizon appeared to be framed in the valley. Looking now at the map, the over-all picture begins to come into better focus. Ajalon is west of Gibeon. Had the sun been setting and the moon rising - as some have supposed - the moon would have been east of Gibeon. This was clearly not the case. The moon was setting in the valley of Ajalon, west of Gibeon. The sun was over Gibeon - in the half of the sky - at noon. With the sun and the moon in these positions, it has been determined that the moon was in its "third quarter," about half full, had risen at about 11 PM the previous night and was now within a half hour of setting. The sun had risen at almost exactly 5 AM that morning. It was summertime, Tuesday, July 22! (Ibid., p. 449). It is not necessary to complicate this paper with the technicalities of how these details are figured (based on the positions of sun and moon, the amount of degrees north of west the valley of Ajalon is from Gibeon, the contour of the land, etc.); nor is it necessary to insist that it was exactly Tuesday, July 22. For our present purpose it is sufficient to say it was summertime, it was the month we call July and, consequently, it was hot! We believe the reason Joshua wanted the sun to stop shining was to provide relief from its burning heat. Protection from the sun's heat in that land was very important, so much so, that prophets commonly used wording about shade as a type of God's blessings: "A shadow from the heat... in a dry place... with the shadow of a cloud" (Isaiah 25:4,5); "The Lord is thy shade... the sun shall not smite thee by day" (Psalms 121:5,6); "... under the shadow of the Almighty" (Ps. 91:1); "A shadow in the daytime from the heat" (Isaiah 4:6); "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (Isaiah 32:2). Jesus spoke of the scorching heat of the sun (Matt. 13:6); "the heat of the day" being the most difficult time to work in the fields (Matt.20:12); a time when workers "earnestly desired the shadow" from the heat (Job 7:2). "The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die," so intense was the heat of the sun (Jonah 4:5,8). Relief from the sun's heat would help Joshua's men, but a longer day would have put them at a disadvantage, as the following details show: When the Gibeonites sent to Joshua for help it was an emergency message: "Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us" (Joshua 10:5,6). The message was urgent and there was no time for delay. "So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and... came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night" (verses 7-9). This was an uphill march of about 20 miles. Since there had been no advance warning, Joshua's men had no time to rest in preparation for this march. Instead, they had been up all day, marched all that night carrying weapons and supplies with them, and had engaged in a fierce battle until noon. Being summertime, and now the heat of the day - with the temperature possibly as high as 120 degrees - is it likely that Joshua would be asking for more hours of daylight? Would another 12 hours of daylight be to their advantage? Hardly. When Joshua commanded the sun to stop, there is every reason to believe he wanted it to stop shining! He didn't want more sunshine, if anything, he wanted less! Professor E. W. Maunder, who was for forty years superintendent of the Solar Department of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, summed up the situation in these very fine comments: From what was it then that Joshua wished the sun to cease: from its moving or from its shining? It is not possible to suppose that, engaged as he was in a desperate battle, he was even so much as thinking of the sun's motion at all. But its shining, its scorching heat, must have been most seriously felt by him. At noon, in high summer, southern Palestine is one of the hottest countries of the world. It is impossible to suppose that Joshua wished the sun to be fixed overhead, where it must have been distressing his men who had already been seventeen hours on foot. A very arduous pursuit lay before them and the enemy must have been fresher than the Israelites. The sun's heat therefore must have been a serious hindrance, and Joshua must have desired it to be tempered. And the Lord harkened to his voice and gave him this and much more. A great hailstorm swept up from the west, bringing with it a sudden lowering of temperature, and no doubt hiding the sun (The World Almanac and Book of Facts - 1982 - New York: Newspaper Enterprise Ass. Inc., 1981, p. 161). "The Wycliffe Bible Commentary," in similar vein, points out that what Joshua deemed necessary for his troops who were already tired from the all-night march, "was relief from the merciless sun... God answered above all that Joshua could ask or think by sending not only the desired shade to refresh His army but also a devastating hailstorm to crush and delay His enemies... The true explanation of this miracle, told in ancient, oriental, poetic style, tends to confirm the idea that Joshua was looking for relief from the sun (Wycliffe Bible Commentary - Moody Press, 1962, p. 218). NO DAY LIKE THAT Once a person has been taught the other view - that the day was extended for many additional hours - a verse like Joshua 10:14 tends to support that idea: "There was no day like that before it or after it." But expressions like this were proverbial; simply a way of stating that what happened was out of the ordinary, unusual. Similar expressions may be found in verses such as Exodus 9:18; 10:14; 1 Kings 3:12; 2 Kings 18:5; 23:22, 25; 2 Chron.1:12; Ezekiel 5:8,9; Joel 2:2; etc. What made this day unusual is explained as we continue reading: "There was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord harkened unto the voice of a man"! We should not read into this verse the idea that the day was unusual because the sun stopped moving and the hours of that day extended. Even if this had been the case, this was clearly not the point here. The point being made, as Maunder says, is that "Joshua had spoken, not in prayer or supplication, but in command, as if all nature was at his disposal; and the Lord had harkened and had, as it were, obeyed a human voice: an anticipation of the time when a greater Joshua would command even the winds and the sea, and they would obey him" (ISBE, p. 448). After reading that there was no day like this before, and that the Lord harkened to the voice of a man, we read: "FOR the Lord fought for Israel." What did the Lord do? Comparing scripture with scripture, what the Lord did in fighting for Israel was this: "The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them... more died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword" (Joshua 10:11). ................. TO BE CONTINUED---- the REST of the story is under "miscellaneous studies" section of this website, if you are on the "History" section. Entered on my Website July 2004 Once a person has been taught the other view - that the day was extended for many additional hours - a verse like Joshua 10:14 tends to support that idea: "There was no day like that before it or after it." But expressions like this were proverbial; simply a way of stating that what happened was out of the ordinary, unusual. Similar expressions may be found in verses such as Exodus 9:18; 10:14; 1 Kings 3:12; 2 Kings 18:5; 23:22, 25; 2 Chron.1:12; Ezekiel 5:8,9; Joel 2:2; etc. What made this day unusual is explained as we continue reading: "There was no day like that before it or after it, THAT the Lord HARKENED unto the voice of a MAN"! We should not read into this verse the idea that the day was unusual because the sun stopped moving and the hours of that day extended. Even if this had been the case, this was clearly not the point here. The point being made, as Maunder says, is that: "Joshua had spoken, not in prayer or supplication, but in command, as if all NATURE was at his DISPOSAL; and the Lord had HARKENED and had, as it were, OBEYED a HUMAN voice: an anticipation of the time when a greater Joshua would command even the winds and the sea, and they would obey him" (ISBE,P.448). After reading that there was no day like this before, and that the Lord harkened to the voice of a man, we read: "FOR the Lord fought for Israel." What did the Lord do? Comparing scripture with scripture, what the Lord did in fighting for Israel was this: "The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them... more died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword" (Joshua 10:11). This explains why that day was unusual and unique. But had the whole solar system stopped moving - this being so much more dynamic - surely the verse would have read: "And there was no day like that before it or after it, for the Lord stopped the whole solar system!" But instead, the POINT of the passage is that the Lord obeyed the voice of a MAN and fought for Israel. And the way he fought for Israel, specifically, is that he sent a storm which dropped huge hailstones upon the enemy. A. Lincoln Shute has described the defeat of the Amorites in these words: For nearly two miles they ran and stumbled from Upper to Lower Beth-horon. Just before passing Lower Beth-horon, they turned to the south and swept through the wider valley just below Lower Beth-horon to the east, now filled with many olive trees. Just after passing Lower Beth-horon, this valley turns westward along the south side of the hill on which the city stands, and a little farther on it turns southward again towards the valley of Ajalon. Here, out of the mountain passes, they poured into this broad valley, and continued their disorderly retreat southward under the pelting hail till they reached the vicinity of Azekah... Here, apparently, the hail-storm ceased (Joshua 10:11), the clouds broke, and, later in the afternoon, past the heat of that July day, the sun appeared once more. (A.Lincoln Shute, "The Battle of Beth-Horon," in "Bibliotheca Sacra," 1927, p. 422). MIRACLES WORLD-WIDE? The earth completes one rotation on its axis in 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. This means that the surface of the earth at the equator is travelling over 1,000 miles an hour. If the earth suddenly stopped - causing the sun to appear to stand still, as some explain it - the chain reaction of events world-wide would have been tremendous. In 1960 an earthquake in Chile triggered seismic sea waves that caused damage from Alaska to New Zealand and wrecked coastal villages in Japan - a third of the way around the world. If an earthquake could have such far-reaching effects, imagine what would happen if the whole earth suddenly stopped! All human beings, animals, and loose objects would be thrown forward. Oceans would be flung onto land, coastal towns would be devastated, ships at sea would be swallowed by vast waves, and buildings would crumble. There would be literally millions of disasters world-wide! Why would thousands of people living in Italy need to be killed with waves, or the population of Japan terrified with a night twice as long, just so Joshua could defeat a comparatively few Amorites at Gibeon? Make no mistake about it, God is all-mighty and could provide invisible "seat belts" for all people, hold back the ocean from the coastlines, protect the ships at sea, keep buildings from toppling over and millions of other miracles as he stopped this planet from turning! But why such complex and overwhelming measures in order to accomplish one simple purpose? To complicate the whole thing to this extent reminds us of a Rube Goldberg drawing about a machine for washing dishes. When spoiled tomcat (A) discovers he is alone, he lets out a yell which scares mouse (B) into jumping into basket (C), causing lever end (D) to rise and pull string (E) which snaps automatic cigar-lighter (F). Flame (G) starts fire sprinkler (H). Water runs on dishes (I) and drips into sink (J). Turtle (K), thinking he hears babbling brook babbling, and having no sense of direction, starts wrong way and pulls string (L), which turns on switch (M) that starts electric glow heater (N). Heat ray (O) dries the dishes! If God suddenly stopped the earth from turning - and performed multiplied millions of protection miracles worldwide - because of Joshua's words, the events that took place at Gibeon would fade into insignificance in comparison! The Bible account of what really happened would be pitifully incomplete. We do not believe this is the case. The New Testament mentions many phenomenal events in Old Testament history -a leper dipping in Jordan for healing, Gideon defeating an army, Lot escaping Sodom, manna falling from heaven, Aaron's staff budding, the Exodus from Egypt, crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, the fall of Jericho, etc. But the New Testament never says anything about what would have been a miracle of much greater magnitude: the sun (or earth) standing still. It does not mention the world-wide disasters this would have caused or the miracles that would have been required to prevent such disasters. Does this not seem like a strange omission if indeed Joshua's words set off a chain of complicated and complex events world-wide? How much more feasible logically and scripturally - to simply recognize that the sun stopped shining and not that it stopped moving! ORDER OF EVENTS Taking the information given in Joshua 10, we are able to reconstruct the order of events for this day. Again, the map on page 84 will clarify the locations (I do not reproduce the map - Keith Hunt). 1. Joshua and his men march all night from their camp at Gilgal (verse 9). 2. Arriving at Gibeon, their attack on the Amorites meets with great success (verse 10). 3. The Amorites flee for Azeka and Makkedah (verse 10). 4. Along the road huge hailstones fall on them, killing more than are killed by the sword of Israel (verse 11). 5. "That day" Makkedah is taken, smitten with the sword, and camp is set up there (verses 28,21). 6. The five kings who escaped and hid in a cave at Makkedah are captured, killed, and hung on trees (verses 16, 26). 7. "And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave" (verse 27). There is not the slightest hint from verse 27 that the sun went down almost 12 (or 24) hours later than usual. There is every reason to believe from this wording that "the time of the going down of the sun" was the normal time. If indeed the sun went down 12 hours later than usual (not to mention 24 hours later, as some suppose!), this would mean that Joshua and his men would have been up the day before their march to Gibeon, marched all night, fought all day until evening, and then continued fighting for another 12 hours during an extended day; that is, a day of 12 hours, a night of 12 hours, fighting all day for 12 hours, and then 12 hours more ! This would be a total of 48 hours without sleep. The Amorites, on the other hand, being the ones who planned the attack, had time to rest before and would have been many hours fresher than the Israelites. An extended day would have given them an advantage - not the Israelites! When the sun went down at Makkedah - "at the time of the going down of the sun," the normal time - this was a long enough day without extending it longer! UNINTERRUPTED TIME Another point that weighs heavily is the fact that the Bible implies the cycle of day and night has never been interrupted. Clear back in Genesis we read: "While the earth remaineth.. day and night shall not cease (Genesis 8:22). Significantly, the word translated "cease" is "sabbath," the word from which Sabbath is derived, expressing the idea of intermission, to rest, to cease (Strong's Concordance, 7673, 7676). In other words, as long as the earth remained, day and night were not to cease, were not to take a sabbath. But if - at the time of Joshua - night did not come at its normal time, then the cycle of day and night did indeed take a rest! Day and night have never ceased to function right on time. "Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night IN THEIR SEASON" - right on time! - "then may also my covenant be broken..." (Jeremiah 33:20). The very integrity of God is linked to an uninterrupted cycle of day and night. Jeremiah, who spoke these words, lived after the time of Joshua. If he had believed the cycle of day and night was interrupted at the time of Joshua, his analogy would not be valid. There is the strong implication that he did not believe the sequence of day and night "in their season" had ever been interrupted. Those who believe the sun stopped and the day was lengthened 12 or 24 hours, face serious problems of interpretation. Suppose Joshua's command was given on a Tuesday (the third day of the week) - and this day was extended to include what normally would have been Wednesday then Thursday (the next day, figuring by the sun marking off day and night) would be the fourth day of the week, Friday the fifth, Saturday the sixth, and Sunday the seventh day of the week. The whole sequence of days would be off a day from what it had been before! No such thing occurred, in our opinion. The Bible uses the term "DAY" in describing this period - not days. If the time marked by the sun and moon was delayed for 24 hours, then holy days such as the Passover would from then on fall on a different day than at the time of Moses. This is unthinkable, for the Israelites were to keep the passover "in the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in its appointed season" (Numbers 9:2, 3). If the moon had been delayed for about a complete day, those who kept the Passover on the fourteenth day after the new moon, would not be keeping the same 24 hour segment of time as that commanded by Moses! All Sabbaths, feast days, and new moon festivals would have fallen within a different 24 hour period than before - each being one day off! This hardly seems to have been the case and so, again, a reason to believe the sun stopped shining - not stopped moving! - at the command of Joshua. (Those who expound and believe this day of Joshua was extended by 12 to 24 hours just tell you that it did not effect the days of the week per se. only that one of those days was an extra long day. But as Woodrow has pointed out God said, long before Joshua that day and night would not be interrupted. Miracles have taken place on certain days, but none of the writers of the Bible give any evidence that the earth stopped rotating for 12 to 24 hours, and so interrupting the normal day and night function of the earth - such an event as Woodrow points out, would have been so huge a miracle, it could have hardly escaped being mentioned by more than one writer of the books of the Bible - Keith Hunt). AN EXTENDED DAY? We have stated that Joshua wanted relief from the heat of the sun - not more hours of sunlight. There is the direct scriptural statement about a storm that moved in which would have caused the sun to stop shining on Gibeon. And there is, of course, the basic fact that stopping the sun would not make an extended day. For these reasons, we have taken the position presented here. But, coming to verse 13, we read that the sun "hasted not to go down about a whole day" which, in our English version, does indeed seem to teach that the day was extended. Our translators lived at a time when it was assumed that if the sun stopped it would make the day longer. It is evident they translated the Hebrew words here to fit within that concept. But these words "cannot be proved to have this meaning," says the highly esteemed "Pulpit Commentary." "In fact, it is difficult to fix any precise meaning on them" (Pulpit Commentary, Vol.7, p.166). Many years ago, A. Lincoln Shute actually visited the area of Gibeon at the specific season when the sun and moon were in the same positions as recorded in Joshua 10, the sun overhead at noon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon to the west. He wrote an article for "Bibliotheca Sacra" in which he stated his belief that the storm caused the sun to stop shining (not moving) and that all the reasonable evidence for this viewpoint "goes far to indicate that [verse 13] probably has some sense that harmonizes with all the rest, if we only knew all the facts and all of the various shades of meaning in that far away time" (Shute, op.cit., p. 430). We agree with this statement and will give several possibilities concerning verse 13. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary gives the following translation: "For the sun ceased [shining] in the midst of the sky, and [i.e., although] it did not hasten to set about a whole day" (The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. 218). Another possibility is this: We are told that the sun "hasted not to go down." If we are correct that the way the sun stopped was that it stopped shining, then the word "go" would be a reversal of that action; that is, the sun stopped shining and did not hasten to "go" (shine) again until the day was about completed (whole). The word translated "whole" is also translated "full" or "complete" in the Bible. In other words, then, what was said poetically would mean, literally, that Joshua commanded the sun to stop shining at noon, the clouds intervened, and when the day was almost completed, the sun shined again. In the meantime, it "hasted not" - it was not in any hurry, was not pressed - to shine down upon them. M'Clintock and Strong suggest that verse 13 - the sun "halted not to go down a whole day" - is equivalent to withheld its full light (M'Clintock and Strong, op. cit., Vol.4. pp. 1026, 1027). Again, bear in mind that the word translated "whole" can be correctly translated "full." The word "day" can be Biblically linked with light, as when "God called the light Day" (Genesis 1:5). By omitting "about" (which is not translated from any Hebrew word anyway), the wording "withheld its full light" does present a meaning in harmony with the evidence we have seen. Another thought: Often when the Bible uses the word "sun," it means more precisely the light of the sun, as when we read that the fruits of the earth are "brought forth by the sun" (Deut.33:14). If it is the light of the sun that is primarily meant in verse 13 - and not the sun itself - it could be said that the light of the sun did not go down - did not shine - until the day was almost completed. This raises the question, however, as to why the expression, "the sun did not GO down" (which sounds more like the setting of the sun itself) would be used. Why would it not be said, if speaking of the light or rays of the sun, "the sun did not COME down"? Realizing that the Hebrew word translated "go" has a wide variety of applications, I wondered if it could just as correctly be translated "come" down. My hunch was easily and quickly confirmed as I checked Strong's Concordance (Number 935). Interestingly enough, this word can be translated either way - "go" or "come"! And, in fact, it is translated more times "come" (670 times) than "go" (150 times)! With this possibility, verse 13 would be saying that the light of the sun (and its excessive heat being implied) did not come down on them until the day was almost complete. Another shade of meaning may be possible in the word translated "day." The word is common enough, but its specific definition is: "to be hot; a day (as the warm hours)" (Strong's Concordance, 3117). By applying this precise meaning to verse 13, and realizing that Joshua wanted relief from the heat of the sun, it is possible that "day" could be understood as the heat of the day. If so, then "about a whole day" would mean that the sun stopped shining for "about" the whole period when the sun's heat would be oppressive - the hot hours of the day. Taking this information, then, and including it in brackets, the following gives an over-all view of our text: "Sun, stop [shining] upon Gibeon... and the sun stopped [shining] ... until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies... So the sun in the midst of the sky stopped [shining], and [the light of the sun] hasted not to go [come or shine] down for about a whole [an entire] day [specifically the hot hours of the day]." POETIC PASSAGE Finally, it should be pointed out that the wording about the sun stopping is in a portion of Joshua 10 that is unmistakably poetic in nature. As the "Pulpit Commentary" says: "The poetic form of this passage is clear to everyone who has the smallest acquaintance with the laws of Hebrew poetry" and that these words "belong rather to the domain of poetry than history, and their language is that of hyperbole rather than of exact narration of facts."" Poetic passages such as this do not require a literal meaning for each word or expression used. .................... TO BE CONTINUED Joshua's Long Day - was it really? #2 More interesting facts
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