'Verse 26. And they raised over him [Achan] a great heap of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger Wherefore the name of that place was called the valley of Achor unto this day.
'Chap, viii., vv. 28, 29. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. And the King of Ai he [Joshua] hanged on a tree until eventide. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day.'
'The words, that remaineth, do not occur in the original Hebrew; they have been added by the translators to make the sense complete. The only inference which both these last quoted passages carry with them concerning the age when they were written is that it was a very long time after the death of Achan in the first text, and of the King of Ai in the second. A similar inference is deduced from the verse which follows:—
'Chap, ix., v. 27. "And Joshua made them [the Gibeonites] that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose."
'The "place which the Lord should choose" was finally Jerusalem, and, if the words were written in the later period of the Israelitish government, the Lord had already chosen Jerusalem to be the site of his temple and the place of his worship.
'Chap, x., v. 1. "Now it came to pass when Adonizedec, King of Jerusalem, had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it," etc.
'This chapter is full of names that did not exist until many years afterwards, some more, some less. Bethhoron, mentioned at verse 10, was built by an Israelitish lady after the conquest, as we learn from 1 Chron. vii., 23, 24:—
'"And when he [Ephraim] went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house. And his daughter was Sherah, who built Bethhoron the nether and the upper, and Uzzen-Sherah."
'The comparison of these texts involves an anachronism. Sherah was only the fourth in descent from Jacob, thus:—Joseph, Ephraim, Beriah, Sherah. If the Israelites remained 430 years in Egypt, as appears from several texts of Scripture, it is impossible that only one generation, Beriah, could have intervened between Ephraim, who was a child when Jacob went down into Egypt, and Sherah, who built Bethhoron.
'Chap, x., vv. 13,14. "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 hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel."