Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin P. Edgecomb" <kevin AT bombaxo.com>]

Hi George,

The idiom I refer to is restricted to "The moon stopped still in the  
midst of the sky," the context of this being the great storm of the  
poem.  Yes, the storm described in the lamentation almost certainly is  
a metaphor for (usually) a devastation caused by a hostile army of one  
sort or another.  Yet the specific idiom "moon stopped still" is  
present as a storm-related idiom.

Likewise, another important element about the Joshua 10 passage is the  
unremarked appearance of the hailstones, absolutely storm-related.   
These are not mentioned as anything unexpected or separate from the  
"sun/moon stopping," though their size is extraordinary.

We needn't provide a bridge to the gap between Sumerian and Hebrew  
cultures.  Several identical proverbs are present in both the Hebrew  
Proverbs and the Sumerian corpora.  There are two options: 1.) the  
proverbs and other bits of Sumerian cultural heritage continued to be  
traditioned; or 2.) the Sumerian "matches" are actually only  
representative of wider cultural usages which persevered longer than  
the Sumerians did.  We needn't force a direct chain of transmission at  
all.  That is, the identical idiom and proverbs and so on may simply  
have been part of the general ANE heritage and worldview.

Relatedly, the narrative doesn't waste words being amazed over the  
type of miracle, but rather that God acted at the request of Joshua:  
exactly what he asked for, God promptly sent (10.14): "There has been  
no day like it before or since, **when the LORD heeded a human  
voice**; for the LORD fought for Israel" (NRSV).

I realize that this has been read consistently as an astronomical  
miracle of some sort.  That doesn't mean the authors intended to  
depict such a thing.  If this is a severe weather-related idiom, it  
makes better sense of the nearly unremarked hailstones (did Joshua ask  
for those, too, anywhere?).  The focus of the story is certainly the  
victory, but the approbation of the miracle is not of its nature, but  
of its timing.  That is, God did what Joshua asked, something that  
*never* happens, the author exclaims.

Anyhow, I think it's more than suggestive.  It certainly makes sense  
of the passage better than the traditional reading.

Regards,
Kevin P. Edgecomb
Berkeley, California