Joshua 10:11

Hebrew Bible

10 The Lord routed them before Israel. Israel thoroughly defeated them at Gibeon. They chased them up the road to the pass of Beth Horon and struck them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah. 11 As they fled from Israel on the slope leading down from Beth Horon, the Lord threw down on them large hailstones from the sky, all the way to Azekah. They died—in fact, more died from the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword. 12 The day the Lord delivered the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua prayed to the Lord before Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon; O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon!”

Sirach 46:5

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon

3 Who before him ever stood so firm? For he waged the wars of the Lord. 4 Was it not through him that the sun stood still and one day became as long as two? 5 He called upon the Most High, the Mighty One, when enemies pressed him on every side, and the great Lord answered him with hailstones of mighty power. 6 He overwhelmed that nation in battle, and on the slope he destroyed his opponents, so that the nations might know his armament, that he was fighting in the sight of the Lord; for he was a devoted follower of the Mighty One.

 Notes and References

"... The episode described in verse 4 evokes one of Joshua’s four miracles narrated in the book that bears his name,40 only two of which are recorded in Ben Sira’s text. Here we have the miracle of the sun which stops at Joshua’s command and enables the Israelites to win the battle of Gibeon (Joshua 10:12–13). However, Ben Sira does not confine himself to reporting the episode just as it is presented in the book of Joshua; he rereads it in order to offer a new interpretation. Firstly, he changes the order of events. Whereas in Joshua 10, the miracle of the hail is mentioned first (verse 11) and then that of the sun (verse 12), in Sirach 46, the miracle of the sun (verse 4ab) precedes that of the hail (verse 5d). Secondly, the sage makes a summary of Joshua 10:12–14, taking up only the essential items (he omits, for example, the mention of the moon) and emphasising the depredations of the enemies. Thirdly, he places Joshua’s prayer between the two miraculous interventions (verse 5a), thus awarding it a central position in the account. In this way, Ben Sira discovers a new face of Joshua, one hitherto hidden. The warrior strong in battle suddenly becomes a man of prayer ..."

Calduch-Benages, Nuria "Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old" in Reif, Stefan C., et al. (eds.) On Wings of Prayer: Sources of Jewish Worship: Essays in Honor of Professor Stefan C. Reif on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (pp. 37-54) De Gruyter, 2019

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