Is it not probable that he would have endeavoured, under these circumstances, to entice the Amorites as far away to the north as possible before he ventured to bring his main force out on the ridge? If so, we may imagine that he first sent a strong force by the valley of Achor to Beeroth; that they were instructed there to take up a strong position, and when firmly established, to challenge the Amorites to attack them. Then, when the Israelite general in command at Beeroth perceived that he had before him practically the whole Amorite force—for it would seem clear that the five kings themselves, together with the greater part of their army, were thus drawn away—he would signal to Joshua that the time had come for his advance. Just as Joshua himself had signalled with his spear at the taking of Aï, so the firing of a beacon placed on the summit of the ridge would suffice for the purpose. Joshua would then lead up the main body, seize the Jerusalem road, and press on to Gibeon at the utmost speed. If this were so, the small detachment of Amorites left to continue the blockade was speedily crushed, but perhaps was aware of Joshua's approach soon enough to send swift runners urging the five kings to return. The news would brook no delay; the kings would turn south immediately; but for all their haste they never reached Gibeon. They probably had but advanced as far as the ridge leading to Beth-horon, when they perceived that not only had Joshua relieved Gibeon and destroyed the force which they had left before it, but that his line, stretched out far to the right and left, already cut them off, not merely from the road to Jerusalem and Hebron, but also from the valley of Ajalon, a shorter road to the Maritime Plain than the one they actually took. East there was no escape; north was the Israelite army from Beeroth; south and west was the army of Joshua. Out-manœuvred and out-generalled, they were in the most imminent danger of being caught between the two Israelite armies, and of being ground, like wheat, between the upper and nether millstones. They had no heart for further fight; the promise made to Joshua,—"there shall not a man of them stand before thee,"—was fulfilled; they broke and fled by the one way open to them, the way of the two Beth-horons.
Whilst this conjectural strategy attributes to Joshua a ready grasp of the essential features of the military position and skill in dealing with them, it certainly does not attribute to him any greater skill than it is reasonable to suppose he possessed. The Hebrews have repeatedly proved, not merely their valour in battle, but their mastery of the art of war, and, as Marcel Dieulafoy has recently shown,[372:1] the earliest general of whom we have record as introducing turning tactics in the field, is David in the battle of the valley of Rephaim, recorded in 2 Sam. v. 22-25 and 1 Chron. xiv. 13-17.
"The several evolutions of a complicated and hazardous nature which decided the fate of the battle would betoken, even at the present day, when successfully conducted, a consummate general, experienced lieutenants, troops well accustomed to manœuvres, mobile, and, above all, disciplined almost into unconsciousness, so contrary is it to our instincts not to meet peril face to face. . . . In point of fact, the Israelites had just effected in the face of the Philistines a turning and enveloping movement—that is to say, an operation of war considered to be one of the boldest, most skilful, and difficult attempted by forces similar in number to those of the Hebrews, but, at the same time, very efficacious and brilliant when successful. It was the favourite manœuvre of Frederick II, and the one on which his military reputation rests."
But though the Amorites had been discomfited by Joshua, they had not been completely surrounded; one way of escape was left open. More than this, it appears that they obtained a very ample start in the race along the north-western road. We infer this from the incident of the hailstorm which fell upon them whilst rushing down the precipitous road between the Beth-horons; a storm so sudden and so violent that more of the Amorites died by the hailstones than had fallen in the contest at Gibeon. It does not appear that the Israelites suffered from the storm; they must consequently have, at the time, been much in the rear of their foes. Probably they were still "in the way that goeth up to Beth-horon"; that is to say, in the ascent some two miles long from Gibeon till the summit of the road is reached. There would be a special appropriateness in this case in the phrasing of the record that "the Lord discomfited the Amorites before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah and unto Makkedah." There was no slaughter on the road between Gibeon and Beth-horon. It was a simple chase; a pursuit with the enemy far in advance.
The Israelites, general and soldiers alike, had done their best. The forced march all night up the steep ravines, the plan of the battle, and the way in which it had been carried out were alike admirable. Yet when the Israelites had done their best, and the heat and their long exertions had nearly overpowered them, Joshua was compelled to recognize that he had been but partly successful. He had relieved Gibeon; the Amorites were in headlong flight; he had cut them off from the direct road to safety, but he had failed in one most important point. He had not succeeded in surrounding them, and the greater portion of their force was escaping.
It was at this moment, when his scouts announced to him the frustration of his hopes, that Joshua in the anxiety lest the full fruits of his victory should be denied him, and in the supremest faith that the Lord God, in Whose hand are all the powers of the universe, was with him, exclaimed:
"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon,
And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!"
So his exclamation stands in our Authorized Version, but, as the marginal reading shows, the word translated "stand still" is more literally "be silent." There can be no doubt that this expression, so unusual in this connection, must have been employed with intention. What was it that Joshua is likely to have had in his mind when he thus spoke?
The common idea is that he simply wished for more time; for the day to be prolonged. But as we have seen, it was midday when he spoke, and he had full seven hours of daylight before him. There was a need which he must have felt more pressing. His men had now been seventeen hours on the march, for they had started at sunset—7 p.m.—on the previous evening, and it was now noon, the noon of a sub-tropical midsummer. They had marched at least twenty miles in the time, possibly considerably more according to the route which they had followed, and the march had been along the roughest of roads, and had included an ascent of 3400 feet—about the height of the summit of Snowdon above the sea-level. They must have been weary, and have felt sorely the heat of the sun, now blazing right overhead. Surely it requires no words to labour this point. Joshua's one pressing need at that moment was something to temper the fierce oppression of the sun, and to refresh his men. This was what he prayed for; this was what was granted him. For the moment the sun seemed fighting on the side of his enemies, and he bade it "Be silent." Instantly, in answer to his command, a mighty rush of dark storm-clouds came sweeping up from the sea.
