JOSHUA'S LONG DAY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 14.

JOSHUA'S LONG DAY.

Its Bearing on the Sabbath Question.

IN Josh. 10:1–14 is recorded the battle at Gibeon, at which Joshua and Israel defeated the five kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon. The day was not long enough for Joshua to finish his work, and so he prayed to God that the day might be lengthened. Thus it reads:—

“Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. 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.” Verses 12, 13.

Here we are told that the day was lengthened into two days, or nearly so, setting the Sabbath back a day. But, even tho it was a longer day, was it not one day? The next verse reads: “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.” The sun rules the day. Gen. 1:14–18. That day was measured by the sun. Whether we hold to the Zetetic philosophy, and believe that the sun paused on its journey around the central pole, or whether we hold to the Copernican hypothesis, that the earth paused in its revolution, making the sun to appear to stand still, makes no difference; the day was one day, measured by the sun. If it was the third day of the week, the day previous was the second day, and the day after was the fourth day. If that day had been sixty clock hours long, it would have made no difference; it was one day still. It therefore did not in any way affect the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day of the weekly or septenary cycle.

It is well to remember that the Sabbath is never designated as a certain proportion, a seventh part of time; it is the seventh day of the seven, whether those days are longer or shorter. If the solar sixth day of the week were twice

as long in actual time as the seventh solar day, that would make no difference. If the seventh day were actually twice as long as the sixth, the succession of weeks and Sabbaths would not be thereby affected.

The theory that “Joshua's long day” made a change in the week, and therefore in the Sabbath, is devised to meet the need of erroneous tradition. The long day does not quite make up two days, we are told, so for seven centuries the old earth went limping along till Hezekiah's time, when the amount wanting to make the double day was supplied; the shadow went backward ten degrees upon the dial. (See 2 Kings 20:9–11.) What a fearful calamity it had been if Hezekiah had said, as the Lord told him he might, “Let the shadow go forward ten degrees”! But he said backward; the lameness of Joshua's long day was healed, but the week and the Sabbath were out of joint till the Crucifixion. There it is said our Lord set the cogged wheels aright, and the first day of the week became the seventh-day Sabbath!

Strange that for seven centuries between Joshua and Hezekiah none of the holy men knew how much out of tune the world was! Strange that from Hezekiah to the Crucifixion, the prophets, who reproved and admonished Israel concerning the Sabbath, did not know that their messages were all a mistake! Strange that Jesus Christ should spend thirty-three years of his life supposing that he was keeping a “lawful” Sabbath day, the day he made for man, and yet be mistaken till his resurrection! Strange that the beloved physician Luke, who wrote thirty years after the Crucifixion, should tell us by the Spirit that the holy women who followed Christ, and who kept the day before the first day of the week, “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment!” Luke 23:56. All these things would be unaccountably strange if “Joshua's long day,” made by the Lord, so completely upset the Lord's own week. The foolish theory, if true, would make nonsense of the Word of God. But it has no basis save the wishes of men to prove by Hook or by Crook that the usurper Sunday has a right to the estate of the Lord's Sabbath. “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar,” if what man speaks would tear up the everlasting foundations of truth. The seventh day is the Sabbath, yea, now and forever, is the Sabbath of the great I AM.