Thirty third Page: Never Ending Noon? Blame it on the Son of Nun!

Ignorance is bliss

Let me save you the trouble of looking up Wikipedia: “Ignorance is bliss” is a phrase coined by Thomas Gray in his 1768 “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”. The sentiment was already expressed by Publilius Syrus: In nil sapiendo vita iucundissima est. (In knowing nothing, life is most delightful)

For instance, it is just as well that prophet Elisha knew nothing of Archemedes’ Principle.  Otherwise his hapless disciple might have been in serious trouble with the lender of the ax head (2 Kings 6:1-7) !

Or take Hannah in the book of 1 Samuel chapter 1. She didn’t bother with the complexities of gynecology and andrology when she muttered her heart-felt prayer for a son. And the Lord remembered her. The result: Samuel, the greatest prophet Israel had known.

And take that lad David. He did not know the meaning of fear when rushing towards the giant Goliath with a sling in hand, saying “Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands”(1 Samuel 17: 45-47). And so it was.

Weakness was a thing foreign to Samson. So he thought nothing of uprooting the gates of Gaza. “And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron” (Judges 16:3).

I don’t think Moses racked his mind about the problem of catering to  2 million people of the children of Israel in the wilderness for so many years. God took care of it.

Facing a hungry crowd of 5000, it was totally absurd  for the disciples to even speak of 5 loaves and two fish (John 6:9) , until Jesus took them into His hand, gave thanks and distributed them.

Our protagonist Joshua knew warfare but I doubt if he knew anything of astronomy. Otherwise he might have held his peace before the Lord in the presence of Israel (Joshua 10: 12 – 14), instead of saying recklessly:

“Sun, stand still over Gibeon,

    and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

(Credit: chongsoonkim.blogspot.com)

This is curious. Whom exactly was Joshua addressing:  the Lord or was he speaking in the imperative to the sun and the moon? It appears both. Some versions of the Bible give you the impression that Joshua turned to the sun and moon after first button-holing God, giving the idea that he knew they were the work of God and were subject to Him.

And though human beings (such as Joshua) were His greatest creation, it is important to note that only “all the creatures that move along the ground” were initially made subject to man (Gen.1:30). Therefore perhaps  it needed a special nod from God for man to take on celestial objects. Maybe that’s why Joshua feels the need to bring God into the equation. He recognized that God as the creator of the universe had complete authority to suspend its functioning.

Let’s look at it again.

“Sun, stand still over Gibeon“

This is rich. 

Who is the guy speaking?

Son of Nun. Shall we say a nobody? But basically descended from Adam.

Therefore pretty much earth, dust of dust. Here today, gone tomorrow (Ps. 103:15-16)

Whom is he talking to?

The sun.

(Credit: pexels.com)

Read Psalm 19 and show some respect. (Can’t blame Joshua; he preceded David by centuries)

However, we can say that the whole exchange can be better commentated in Tamil. (Remember only a few months ago Anand Mahindra taught us the value of “போடா “!) . In this case, shall we say “நமக்கே கொஞ்சம் ஓவரா தெரியல?”

Wikipedia tells us that the Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core.

Yes, according to Science, the sun – all of 1400,000 km in diameter is full of gases and burning away to glory at temperatures above 5500 deg.K.

And how far is it from the earth?

One hundred and fifty million kilometres from the earth, give or take a million!

Joshua apparently did not know all these details, nor did he care. All he was concerned about was daylight saving or daylight extending, so that he can finish off the business of slaughtering the Ammonites..

Pretty focused. Yes, but also – sorry – pretty dumb.

And – may I observe – rather selfish!

“All things are possible with God” (Luke 1:37) yes, but we are most often thinking of earthly matters that concern us.

Heavenly beings are a different kettle of fish.

And our friend didn’t pause to think.

First of all, were the daylight to remain unchanged, the earth should stop rotating. This throws the 24 hour day out of the window.

Then there is another problem. The earth is going around the sun. Should it continue do this while failing to rotate, the area of incidence of light would change.

So it has to index itself, incrementally.

There is a lot more of course but that’s Astronomy for Dumbos.

None of these, the problem of the son of Nun.

Oh, there are myriad unnamed heavenly bodies going hither and thither, apparently aimlessly. And they are kept from causing any damaging collisions by their creator.

Suddenly their projected path becomes critical, for earth is standing still!

And what about the other planets dutifully doing their rounds. With none – like the son of Nun – to disturb their coarse, they essay to continue doing their thing. But hey, wait, Houston there is a problem; our fellow circler, the good earth is behaving funnily!

(credit:edsys.in)

God had a myriad things to take care of, because Joshua had spoken hastily but He was not about to wring His hands in despair and curse the bloody fool.

This whole matter was very much in His will.

 The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you.”(Josh. 10:8)

And further. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel! (Josh. 10:14)

Satan was stunned.

More than any one else apart from God, he had some knowledge how far the sun was. And he knew it was beyond the ken of man to orchestrate celestial events. Yet this little son of Nun was speaking to the sun and moon, nay commanding them. Crazy.

The heavenly hosts were astonished as well.

It is all very well to speak of audacity of faith – even Barrack Obama used the word in the context of hope, but here was downright idiocy.

Joshua did not bother to check if his faith was rewarded or not. He did not linger around to see if the sun stayed in the same place. He had made his request, uttered his prayer and that was it. He went about his business – that was to slaughter the Amorites. 

Audacious, blind, idiotic, senseless faith.

Muttering and praying endlessly and repetitively is  not for him.

Ten thousand sacrifices of praise may be a nice concept but when you are going after an evil gang of kings, it probably didn’t make sense.

“Cut the cackle and go for the ‘osses” seemed to be more Joshua’s style.

We said satan was stunned. It was within His will and all but  I wonder if God Himself wasn’t taken aback! Wasn’t our friend Joshua exceeding his brief as it were. We read in the New Testament that more than once, Jesus was surprised by faith.

So, if this was faith…. as we said it is…. idiotic.

Satan wasn’t given time like in the case of Job to line up along with the angels and enter His presence to take permission to torment Joshua.

Here was a guy, who had no time to lose.

A man in a hurry

A quick prayer to Jehovah , a hurried ask to the Sun and Moon… and then it was all business.

Not for him to linger around and see if the Sun was behaving.

He didn’t need to look up again.

Obviously He was made of a different stuff from Lot’s wife. 

 

Joshua, described only as the son of Nun

Made bold to command, would you believe it, the sun!

To stand over Gibeon absolutely still

Till God’s purpose he did fulfill

And the battle with the Amorite kings he decisively won!

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