It was at this moment, when his scouts announced to him the frustration of his hopes, that Joshua in the anxiety lest the full fruits of his victory should be denied him, and in the supremest faith that the Lord God, in Whose hand are all the powers of the universe, was with him, exclaimed: "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!" So his exclamation stands in our Authorized Version, but, as the marginal reading shows, the word translated "stand still" is more literally "be silent." There can be no doubt that this expression, so unusual in this connection, must have been employed with intention. What was it that Joshua is likely to have had in his mind when he thus spoke? The common idea is that he simply wished for more time; for the day to be prolonged. But as we have seen, it was midday when he spoke, and he had full seven hours of daylight before him. There was a need which he must have felt more pressing. His men had now been seventeen hours on the march, for they had started at sunset--7 p.m.--on the previous evening, and it was now noon, the noon of a sub-tropical midsummer. They had marched at least twenty miles in the time, possibly considerably more according to the route which they had followed, and the march had been along the roughest of roads, and had included an ascent of 3400 feet--about the height of the summit of Snowdon above the sea-level. They must have been weary, and have felt sorely the heat of the sun, now blazing right overhead. Surely it requires no words to labour this point. Joshua's one pressing need at that moment was something to temper the fierce oppression of the sun, and to refresh his men. This was what he prayed for; this was what was granted him. For the moment the sun seemed fighting on the side of his enemies, and he bade it "Be silent." Instantly, in answer to his command, a mighty rush of dark storm-clouds came sweeping up from the sea. Refreshed by the sudden coolness, the Israelites set out at once in the pursuit of their enemies. It is probable that for the first six miles they saw no trace of them, but when they reached Beth-horon the Upper, and stood at the top of its steep descent, they saw the Amorites again. As it had been with their fathers at the Red Sea, when the pillar of cloud had been a defence to them but the means of discomfiture to the Egyptians, so now the storm-clouds which had so revived them and restored their their strength, had brought death and destruction to their enemies. All down the rocky descent lay the wounded, the dying, the dead. For "the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them, unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword." "The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Had melted like snow in the glance of the Lord."