The only measure of time, available to the Israelites, independent of the apparent motion of the sun, was the number of miles marched. Indeed, with the Babylonians, the same word (_kasbu_) was used to indicate three distinct, but related measures. It was a measure of time--the double hour; of celestial arc--the twelfth part of a great circle, thirty degrees, that is to say the space traversed by the sun in two hours; and it was a measure of distance on the surface of the earth--six or seven miles, or a two hours' march. If, for the sake of illustration, we may suppose that the sun were to stand still for us, we should recognize it neither by sundial nor by shadow, but we should see that whereas our clocks had indicated that the sun had risen (we will say) at six in the morning, and had southed at twelve of noon; it had not set until twelve of the night. The register of work done, shown by all our clocks and watches, would be double for the afternoon what it had been for the morning. And if all our clocks and watches did thus register upon some occasion twice the interval between noon and sunset that they had registered between sunrise and noon, we should be justified in recording, as the writer of the book of Joshua has recorded, "The sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." The real difficulty to the understanding of this narrative has lain in the failure of commentators to put themselves back into the conditions of the Israelites. The Israelites had no time-measurers, could have had no time-measurers. A sundial, if any such were in existence, would only indicate the position of the sun, and therefore could give no evidence in the matter. Beside, a sundial is not a portable instrument, and Joshua and his men had something more pressing to do than to loiter round it. Clepsydræ or clocks are of later date, and no more than a sundial are they portable. Many comments, one might almost say most comments on the narrative, read as if the writers supposed that Joshua and his men carried stop-watches, and that their chief interest in the whole campaign was to see how fast the sun was moving. Since they had no such methods of measuring time, since it is not possible to suppose that over and above any material miracle that was wrought, the mental miracle was added of acquainting the Israelites for this occasion only with the Copernican system of astronomy, all that the words of the narrative can possibly mean is, that-- "the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day," according to the only means which the Israelites had for testing the matter. In short, it simply states in other words, what, it is clear from other parts of the narrative, was actually the case, that the length of the march made between noon and sunset was equal to an ordinary march taking the whole of a day.