1. Joshua 6. Could God have simply blown down the walls of every town in Canaan?

Yes, just as He could so easily blow all our troubles away. But that, we find all through Scripture, is not His way. He works in us, through us, with us, to accomplish His purposes. He was all powerful before we were created, and did all things by Himself. When he created us, it was I part, for fellowship.

2. Joshua 7:1. Who was unfaithful in regard to the “devoted” thing? (the ban)

Trick question, not just Bible trivia. We know that Achan was the man, but the Scripture here accuses Israel. There is something that is so offensive with sin that it colors God’s thoughts about a whole family, tribe, or nation. Elsewhere in the story we read of how God’s wrath was turned away from Israel by the actions of one zealous hater of sin, Phinehas. (Numbers 25:7)

More to the point, Jesus Christ has turned away God’s wrath from us by one righteous act of giving His life for our sins.

3. Joshua 7:21. Why was not Achan’s honest confession enough to save his life?

Many ways we could look at this:

• All Israel had suffered.
• Sin must be punished.
• No one deserves God’s mercy. There is no one action, except Christ’s on Calvary, that puts us in a place where we can expect no punishment.
• The people were new in their walk as a nation and needed a firm example of God’s hatred of sin. See also Ananias and Sapphira in the beginning of the church’s history.

4. Joshua 10:12-14. Though we do not doubt God’s miracle power, we do wonder how the sun and moon could stop without total universal chaos in the heavens.

There is very little if anything like this mentioned in the histories of the nations, to begin with.

Secondly, often the references to natural processes in Scripture are in poetical, or apparent, terms. The rising and setting of the sun of which we still speak, is a non-scientific way to describe what happens every 24 hours.

So Joshua’s command would have been “un-scientific”, since the sun does not move. The earth moves, and rotates. But from the appearance of it, Joshua needed the sun to stop its movement. So that is what he asked for.

So did the Earth stop? This too poses scientific problems, and devastation to the things and people of Earth. A more sensible interpretation comes Don Stewart’s website, but we rush to add that if God indeed decided to intervene in this spectacular way, He could also take care of any of the supposed side effects.

“Some read the text to mean that a retardation of the movement of the earth is what happened. Instead of taking twenty-four hours for one rotation, it took from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. This would have given Joshua and his armies sufficient daylight to win the battle over their enemies without causing the major disturbances that would have happened if the earth stopped rotating. Old Testament authority Gleason Archer writes:

“It has been objected that if in fact the earth was stopped for a period of twenty-four hours, inconceivable catastrophe would have befallen the entire planet and everything on its surface. While those who believe in the omnipotence of God would hardly concede that Yahweh could not have prevented such catastrophe and held in abeyance the physical laws that might be brought to pass, it does not seem to be absolutely necessary (on the basis of the Hebrew text itself) to hold that the planet was suddenly halted in its rotation. Verse 13 states that the sun ‘did not hasten to go down for about a whole day’ (NASB). The words ‘did not hasten’ seem to point to a retardation of the movement so that the rotation required forty-eight hours rather than the usual twenty-four (Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1982, p. 161).

“Donald K. Campbell concurs:

“The best explanation seems to be the view that in answer to Joshua’s prayer, God caused the rotation of the earth to slow down so that it made one full rotation in 48 hours rather than in 24. It seems apparent that this view is supported by both the poem in verses 12b-13a and the prose in verse 13b (Donald K. Campbell, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, John Walvoord and Roy Zuck. eds., Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1985, p. 351).

“God caused the rotation of the earth to slow down. The earth, therefore, made one full rotation around the sun in a longer period of time. This fits with verse 13 which says, "The sun . . . delayed going down about a full day." Thus the sun was abnormally slow in getting to sunset, giving Joshua and his soldiers sufficient time to complete their victorious battle.”