implies that, at the moment of his speaking, the two heavenly bodies appeared to him to be, the one upon or over Gibeon, the other over the valley of Ajalon. We have therefore, in effect, a definite astronomical observation; interesting in itself, as being one of the oldest that has been preserved to us; doubly interesting in the conclusions that we are able to deduce from it. The idea which has been most generally formed of the meaning of Joshua's command, is, that he saw Gibeon in the distance on the horizon in one direction with the sun low down in the sky immediately above it, and the valley of Ajalon in the distance, on the horizon in another direction, with the moon low down in the sky above it. It would be quite natural to associate the sun and moon with distant objects if they were only some five or six degrees high; it would be rather straining the point to do so if they were more than ten degrees high; and if they were fifteen or more degrees high, it would be quite impossible. They could not be both in the same quarter of the sky; both rising or both setting. For this would mean that the moon was not only very near the sun in the sky, but was very near to conjunction--in other words, to new moon. She could, therefore, have only shown a slender thread of light, and it is perfectly certain that Joshua, facing the sun in such a country as southern Palestine could not possibly have perceived the thin pale arch of light, which would have been all that the moon could then have presented to him. Therefore the one must have been rising and the other setting, and Joshua must have been standing between Gibeon and the valley of Ajalon, so that the two places were nearly in opposite directions from him. The moon must have been in the west and the sun in the east, for the valley of Ajalon is west of Gibeon. That is to say, it cannot have been more than an hour after sunrise, and it cannot have been more than an hour before moonset. Adopting therefore the usual explanation of Joshua's words, we see at once that the common idea of the reason for Joshua's command to the sun, namely, that the day was nearly over, and that he desired the daylight to be prolonged, is quite mistaken. If the sun was low down in the sky, he would have had practically the whole of the day still before him. 2.--BEFORE THE BATTLE