“Adonai threw them into confusion before Israel and defeated them in a great slaughter at Giv‘on, pursuing them along the road that goes up from Beit-Horon, and beating them back to ‘Azekah and all the way to Makkedah. As they fled before Isra’el down the road to Beit-Horon, Adonai threw huge hailstones down on them all the way to ‘Azekah, and they died; more died because of the hail than because Israel had killed them with the sword.”-Joshua 10:10-11
Alrighty, so the tables have turned on the five kings who had attacked Gibeon with the intention of punishing them for entering into a peace treaty with Israel.
We’re told they fled towards an area the Scripture calls BETH-HORON.
In Hebrew, this literally means “the house of caves” and true to its name, the region was populated with a ton of caves .
The kings were thinking of using these caves as a nice and safe hiding place from Joshua and his forces (a pretty good idea actually).
Now when I referred to Beth-horon as a “region”, that was a deliberate word choice because this area was NOT a town, nor was it a city.
It was a region located northwest of Gibeon and the Scriptures tell us the area was divided into upper Beth-horon and lower Beth-horon.
Upper Beth-horon was an upward slope located a good 5 miles from Gibeon and lower Beth-horon was a downward slope situated about a mile and a half further away.
We’re told the action got really fast and furious as soon as the 5 kings’ forces left Beth-horon.
They were immediately greeted by a raging hailstorm and the Scripture tells us “more died because of the hail than because Israel had killed them with the sword”.
Next, let’s take a look at one of the more well known and frankly mysterious stories to be found anywhere in the whole Bible.
Take a look at verse 12:
“On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel:
‘Sun, stand still over Gibeon,
and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.'”
HOLY COW!
What the heck is going on here?
Okay, so here’s what you’ve got to know.
There’s a real practical reason why God extended the daylight hours during this battle and you’re not going to understand why unless you’re familiar with how war was normally conducted in the ancient Middle East.
During Bible times, battles between armies normally finished before the sun set.
Why?
Because once darkness set in, it was just too difficult to tell who was an enemy soldier or not, not to mention that at the end of the day, everyone was just exhausted as all hell and wanted to head back to their camps to eat and rest up.
However, in this particular case, there was another really important reason why the five kings and their armies were just begging for the sun to go down.
It’s because the darkness would be the perfect cover that would enable them to return undetected back to their home towns.
Joshua was well aware of this and was probably concerned there just wasn’t going to be enough daytime hours to stop the 5 kings and their military coalition from escaping back to the protection of their walled cities.
It was going to take a miracle to capture these kings and defeat their armies before this happened.
Well, fortunately, the God we worship specializes in doing miracles and doing them at the most precise time when they are needed.
We’ll continue with this story the next time we meet.
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