The Astronomy of the Bible / An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture

by E. Walter Maunder

A reference to the [map] shows that Gilgal, the headquarters of the army of Israel, was on the plain of Jericho, close to the banks of the Jordan, at the bottom of that extraordinary ravine through which the river runs. Due west, at a distance of about sixteen or seventeen miles as the crow flies, but three thousand four hundred feet above the level of the Jordan, rises the Ridge of the Watershed, the backbone of the structure of Palestine. On this ridge are the cities of Jerusalem and Gibeon, and on it, leading down to the Maritime Plain, runs in a north-westerly direction, the road through the two Beth-horons.

The two Beth-horons are one and a half miles apart, with a descent of 700 feet from the Upper to the Lower.

The flight of the Amorites towards Beth-horon proves, beyond a doubt, that Joshua had possessed himself of the road from Gibeon to Jerusalem. It is equally clear that this could not have been done by accident, but that it must have been the deliberate purpose of his generalship. Jerusalem was a city so strong that it was not until the reign of David that the Israelites obtained possession of the whole of it, and to take it was evidently a matter beyond Joshua's ability. But to have defeated the Amorites at Gibeon, and to have left open to them the way to Jerusalem—less than six miles distant—would have been a perfectly futile proceeding. We may be sure, therefore, that from the moment when he learned that Adoni-zedek was besieging Gibeon, Joshua's first aim was to cut off the Amorite king from his capital.

The fact that the Amorites fled, not towards their cities but away from them, shows clearly that Joshua had specially manœuvred so as to cut them off from Jerusalem. How he did it, we are not told, and any explanation offered must necessarily be merely of the nature of surmise. Yet a considerable amount of probability may attach to it. The geographical conditions are perfectly well known, and we can, to some degree, infer the course which the battle must have taken from these, just as we could infer the main lines of the strategy employed by the Germans in their war with the French in 1870, simply by noting the places where the successive battles occurred. The positions of the battlefields of Mars-la-Tour, Gravelotte, and Sedan would show clearly that the object of the Germans had been, first, to shut Bazaine up in Metz, and then to hinder MacMahon from coming to his relief. So in the present case, the fact that the Amorites fled by the way of the two Beth-horons, shows, first, that Joshua had completely cut them off from the road to Jerusalem, and next, that somehow or other when they took flight they were a long way to the north of him. Had they not been so, they could not have had any long start in their flight, and the hailstorm which occasioned them such heavy loss would have injured the Israelites almost as much.

How can these two circumstances be accounted for? I think we can make a very plausible guess at the details of Joshua's strategy from noting what he is recorded to have done in the case of Aï. On that occasion, as on this, he had felt his inability to deal with an enemy behind fortifications. His tactics therefore had consisted in making a feigned attack, followed by a feigned retreat, by which he drew his enemies completely away from their base, which he then seized by means of a detachment which he had previously placed in ambush near. Then, when the men of Aï were hopelessly cut off from their city, he brought all his forces together, surrounded his enemies in the open, and destroyed them.

It was a far more difficult task which lay before him at Gibeon, but we may suppose that he still acted on the same general principles. There were two points on the ridge of the watershed which, for very different reasons, it was important that he should seize. The one was Beeroth, one of the cities of the Hivites, his allies, close to his latest victory of Aï, and commanding the highest point on the ridge of the watershed. It is distant from Jerusalem some ten miles—a day's journey. Tradition therefore gives it as the place where the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph turned back sorrowing, seeking Jesus. For "they, supposing Him to have been in the company, went a day's journey," and Beeroth still forms the first halting-place for pilgrims from the north on their return journey.

Beeroth also was the city of the two sons of Rimmon who murdered Ishbosheth, the son of Saul. When it is remembered how Saul had attempted to extirpate the Gibeonites, and how bitter a blood feud the latter entertained against his house in consequence, it becomes very significant that the murderers of his son were men of this Gibeonite town.

Beeroth also commanded the exit from the principal ravine by which Joshua could march upwards to the ridge—the valley of Achor. The Israelites marching by this route would have the great advantage that Beeroth, in the possession of their allies, the Gibeonites, would act as a cover to them whilst in the ravines, and give them security whilst taking up a position on the plateau.

But Beeroth had one fatal disadvantage as a sole line of advance. From Beeroth Joshua would come down to Gibeon from the north, and the Amorites, if defeated, would have a line of retreat, clear and easy, to Jerusalem. It was absolutely essential that somewhere or other he should cut the Jerusalem road.

This would be a matter of great difficulty and danger, as, if his advance were detected whilst he was still in the ravines, he would have been taken at almost hopeless disadvantage. The fearful losses which the Israelites sustained in the intertribal war with Benjamin near this very place, show what Joshua might reasonably have expected had he tried to make his sole advance on the ridge near Jerusalem.