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a long job, and Joshua's throat must have been rather dry at the end.
But the greatest wonder is how he made himself heard to three millions
of people at once. No other orator ever addressed so big an audience.
Either their ears were very sharp, or his voice was terribly loud. The
people in the front rank must have been nearly stunned with the sound.
Joshua could outroar Bottom the weaver by two or three miles.
The people of Gibeon, by means of messengers who palmed themselves off
on Joshua as strangers from a distant country, contrived to obtain a
league whereby their lives were spared. When their craft was detected
they were sentenced to become hewers of wood and drawers of water to the
Jews; in other words, their slaves.
Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem; Hoham, king of Hebron; Piram, king
of Jamuth; Japhia, king of Lachish; and Debir, king of Eglon; banded
themselves together to punish Gibeon for making peace with the Jews.
Joshua went with all his army to their relief. He fell upon the armies
of the five kings, discomfitted them with great slaughter, and chased
them along the way to Beth-horon. As they fled the Lord joined in the
hunt. He "cast down great stones from heaven upon them" and killed a
huge number, even "more than they whom the children of Israel slew with
the sword."
When we read that Pan fought with the Greeks against the Persians at
Marathon, we must regard it as a fable; but when we read that Jehovah
fought with the Jews against the five kings at Gibeon, we must regard it
as historical truth, and if we doubt it we shall be eternally damned.
Not only did the Lord join in the war-hunt, but Joshua wrought the
greatest miracle on record by causing a stationary body to stand still.
He stopped the sun from "going down" and lengthened out the day for
about twelve hours, in order that the Jews might see to pursue and kill
the flying foe. "The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the
people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." What Joshua really
stopped, if he stopped anything, was the earth, for its revolution,
and not the motion of the sun, causes the phenomena of day and night.
Science tells us that the arrest of the earth's motion would generate a
frightful quantity of heat, enough to cause a general conflagration.
Yet nothing of the kind happened. How is it, too, that no other ancient
people has preserved any record of this marvellous occurrence? The
Egyptians, for instance, caref
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