Joshua 10:6

"And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill-country are gathered together against us. So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. And Jehovah said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thy hands; there shall not a man of them stand before thee. Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly; for he went up from Gilgal all the night. And Jehovah discomfited them before Israel, and he slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-horon, that Jehovah cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more who died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword."

This was the crucial test of Israel by the Gibeonites. Under the terms of the treaty which Israel had made with Gibeon, Israel was surely obligated to come to the aid of Gibeon, and they met the test by responding at once to Gibeon's cry for help.

The Gibeonites referred to the attacking coalition as, "all the kings of the hill-country," but this they probably did because Jerusalem was the leader of the coalition, and Jerusalem and Hebron were both actually in the hill-country. Of course, we know that most of the attacking kings were from the lowlands, and, as Plummer said, "No one could have hit upon this apparent contradiction, yet real agreement, but one whose narrative was composed from authentic sources."[19] Og and Sihon, kings of the Amorites east of Jordan, had already been defeated and slain by Israel, but the reference here to these cities of Palestine as "Amorite," is nevertheless accurate. As Woudstra pointed out, "the term `Amorite' had a loose meaning."[20]

As soon as Joshua received the plea from Gibeon, he commanded an all-night moonlight march. We know it was a moonlight night because, the next morning Joshua could see the sun in the east over Gibeon and the moon not yet set over the valley of Aijalon to the westward. The coalition were encamped west of Gibeon, and by his surprise march, Joshua was able to throw his army squarely between the would-be-attackers and Gibeon. He proceeded to chase them in a northwesterly direction down a very rocky and precipitous road through Upper Beth-horon and Lower Beth-horon. As Unger said:

"Joshua chased them down the steep descent between Beth-horon the Upper (altitude of 2,022 feet) to Beth-horon the Lower (altitude of 1,210 feet). On that terrible descent, the Lord sent that disastrous storm of darkness and hail, killing more by the hail than Israel slew by the sword."[21]

It must have been a shocking discovery indeed when the attacking coalition were totally surprised by Joshua's swift, lightning-like, response to their threat against Gibeon. This was one of the most decisive battles of the conquest of Canaan.

The victory here was all of God and none of Joshua.

The difficulty of Joshua's all-night march should be noted. It was some 25 miles distance, UPHILL all the way, a climb of 2,000 feet vertical from the camp at Gilgal. Their climb was almost the equivalent of ascending the Grand Canyon by climbing from the half-way point to the rim! Anyone who has ever made that climb can testify to its difficulty. Plummer said that much of the distance covered by Joshua in that 25 miles was so steep that steps had been chiseled into the rock to provide footholds![22] It is to Joshua's eternal credit that he did not hesitate to OBEY God's order to strike!

But look at Joshua 10:10, and note the four pronouns: JEHOVAH discomfited them ... and HE slew them with great slaughter ... and HE smote them unto Azekah ... and HE smote them unto Makkedah. The last two of these are the understood subjects, but in all four cases, GOD is the subject. "It is GOD who does it, not Israel, not Joshua!"[23] Joshua's part was merely to carry forward with the mopping up exercises!

The reference to the hailstones (Joshua 10:11) and merely to "great stones from heaven" a moment earlier has led some to suppose that those terrible hailstones was accompanied by a shower of meteorites striking the earth precisely at that time and place. Although possible enough, such a thing does not appear to us to be indicated at all in this text. A terrible hailstorm can be damaging enough without any aid from falling meteorites. In Washington, D.C. (1951-1953), a terrible hailstorm in Rock Creek Park severely damaged the trees by dumping millions of hailstones about the size of grapefruits! Some of these were stored in deep-freeze units, and pictures were made of some of the larger ones resting in tumblers (four inches wide), the hailstones too large to go down! Later, when visitors questioned the size of the hailstones, they were shown to them. It will also be remembered that hailstones killed both men and cattle in Egypt (Exodus 9:25).

Before leaving these verses, we should remember the words of Matthew Henry who commented upon the eternal justice involved in the destructiveness of that awful hailstorm. He said:

"The attackers of Gibeon had affronted the true God and robbed him of his honor by worshipping the host of heaven, giving that worship to the creature which is due to the Creator only, and now the host of heaven fights against them, and that part of the creation which they had idolized is at war against them!"[24]