ully noted eclipses and such events, but
they jotted down no memorandum of Joshua's supreme miracle. Why is this?
How can Christians explain it?

When Jupiter personated Amphytrion, and visited his bride Alcmena, the
amorous god lengthened out the night in order to prolong his enjoyment.
Why may we not believe this? Is it not as credible, and quite as moral,
as the Bible story of Jehovah's lengthening out the day to prolong a
massacre? Were the Greeks any bigger liars than the Jews?

It has been suggested that Joshua was so elated with the victory that
he drank more than was good for him, and got in such a state that in the
evening he saw two moons instead of one. Nobody liked to contradict him,
but the elders of Israel, to harmonise their leader's vision, declared
that it comprised the sun and the moon, instead of two moons, which
were clearly absurd. The court poet improved on this explanation, and
composed the neat little poem which is partially preserved by the Jewish
chronicler, who asks "Is not this written in the book of Jasher?" The
waggish laureate Jasher is supposed by some profane speculators to have
got up the whole miracle himself.

The five kings fled with their armies and "hid themselves in a cave at
Makkedah." Joshua ordered the mouth to be closed with big stones until
the pursuit was ended. At last they were brought out and treated with
great ignominy. Their necks were made footstools of by the captains of
Israel, and they were afterwards hung on trees until the evening, when
their carcasses were flung into the cave. After this highly civilised
treatment of their captives, the Jews took all the capital cities of
these five kings and slew all the inhabitants. Then they desolated the
hills and vales. Joshua "left none remaining, but utterly destroyed
all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded." Hazor and many
other places were also treated in the same way, "there was not any left
to breathe."

Jehovah was not, however, able to execute his intentions completely. The
children of Judah could not drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem; nor
could the children of Manasseh entirely drive out the Canaanites from
their cities. After Joshua's death, as we read in the book of _Judges_,
"the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the
mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because
they had chariots of iron." Iron chariots were too strong for the
Almighty! Yet h