I. Vieics of the Incident in Joshua's Career. — The book of Jasher has attracted attention because it is ap- pealed to in connection with the account of the sun and moon standing still. The compiler of the book of Joshua refers to it as containing a record of the miracle in ques- tion. It is therefore impossible to do justice to our subject without entering into an interpretation of the wonderfid phenomenon on which so much ingenuity has been wasted. The misspent time which has been de- voted to the passage in Joshua makes a critic sad in- IV.— D I. I)
deed. Instead of looking at the words in their natural and obvious sense, men have been led away by their adherence to the letter into recondite, foolish, and ab- surd conjectures. One thing is a key to the right iii- terjiretation, viz. that the passage recording the miracle is a quotation from the poetical book of Jasher. The only difficulty is to discover where the quotation begins and where it ends. But, whatever difference of opinion there may be as to this point, it is clear that a strictly literal signification of the language ought not to be pressed upon a statement professedly extracted from a popular poetical work
1. The most obvious and ancient interpretation of this difficult passage is the literal one. At first it was con- tended that tiie sun itself, which was then believed to have revolved round the earth, stayed his course for a day. Those who take this view argue that the theory of the diurnal motion of the earth, which has been the generally received one since the time of (ialileo and Co- peiniius, is incimsistent with the Scripture narrative. Nutwithstanding the general reception of the Coperni- can s}-stcm of the universe, this view continued to be held by many divines, Protestant as well as Koman Cath- olic, and was strenuouslj' maintained by Buddeus {Hist. Eccles. V. T. Halle, 1715, 1744, p. 828 sq.) and others in the last centurj'.
But in more recent times the miracle has been ex- plained so as to make it accord with the now received opinion respecting the earth's motion, and the Scripture narrative supposed (o contain rather an optical and pop- ular than a literal account of what took place on this occasion: so that it was in reality the earth, and not the sun, which stood still at the command of Joshua (Clarke's Commentary, ad loc).
2. Another opinion is that first suggested by Spinoza {Tract. Theolo(/.'Politic. c. ii, p. 22, and c. vi) and after- wards maintained by Le Clerc {Comment, ad loc), that the miracle was produced by refraction only, causing the sun to appear above the horizon after its setting, or
j by some other atmospherical phenomena, which pro- duced sufficient light to enable Joshua to pursue and discomfit his enemies. This seems to be the only view which grants the reality of the miracle, without encum- bering it with unnecessary difficulties.
3. The last opinion we shall mention is that of the learned Jew jMaimonides {More Ntbochim, ii, c. liii), viz. that Joshua only asked of the Almighty to grant that he might defeat his enemies before the going down of the sun, and that God heard his prayer, inasmuch as
I before the close iif the day the five kings, with their ar-
[ mies, were cut in pieces. This opinion is favored by
I Vatablus, in the marginal note to this passage (see Eob-
ert Stephens's edition of the Bible, folio 1557), "Lord,
permit that the light of the sun and moon fail us not
I before our enemies are defeated." Grotius, while ho
admitted that there was no difficulty in the Almighty's
, arresting the course of the sun, or making it reappear
by refraction, approved of the explanation of Jlaimoni-
des, which has been since that period adopted by many
divines, including Jahn among the Koman Catholics
(who explains the whole as a sublime poetical trope.
Introd. p. ii, § 30), and, among orthodox Protestants, by
a writer in the Berlin Kranr/elische Kirchetizeitunr/, Nov.
1832, supposed to be the editor, the late professor Heng-
stenberg (Robinson's Biblical depositor)/, 1833, iii, 791
sq. See Seller's Biblical Hermeneuiics, English transla-
! tor's note, p. 175, 176). See Joshua.
II. Opinions as to the Character of the Book itself.^ • As the word Jasher signifies jws^ or vprvjht, by which term it is rendered in the margin of our Bibles, this book has generally been considered to liave been so en- I titled as containing a history of Just men. The former j of the above passages in which the book is cited in 1 Scripture is omitted by the Sept., while in the latter the expression is rendered jiijiXiov roi fii&oi'g'- the i Vulg. has liber justorum in both instances. The Peshito I SjTiac in Joshua has "the book of jj raises or ht/mns,"
JASHER
(86
JASHER
reading "I'^'i'r! for "I'i'^v?, and a similar transposition wiU account for the rendering of the same version in Sam., " the book of A shir." The Targum interprets it " the book of the law," and this is followed by Jarchi, who gives, as the passage alluded to in Joshua, the prophecv of Jacob with regard to the future greatness of Ephraim (Gen. xlviii, 19), which was fulfilled when the sun stood still at Joshua's bidding. The same Rabbi, in his commentary on Samuel, refers to Genesis, " the book of the upright, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," to explain the allusion to the book of Jasher; and Jerome, while discussing the " etymology of Israel," which he interprets as "rectus Dei," incidentally mentions the fict that Genesis was called "the book of the just" (li- ber Genesis appellatur evBsojv, id est, justorum), from its containing the histories of Abraham, Isaac, and Is- rael (Comm. in Jes. xliv, 2). The Talmudists attribute this tradition to R. Johanan. R. Eliezer thought that by the book of Jasher was signified the book of Deuter- onomy from the expressions in Deut. vi, 18 ; xxxiii, 7, the latter being quoted in proof of the skill of the He- brews in archer}'. In the opinion of Rabbi Samuel ben- Nachman, the book of Judges was alluded to as the book of Jasher {A boda Zara, c. ii) ; and that it was the book of the twelve minor prophets was held by some Hebrew writers, quoted without name by Sixtus Senen- sis (Bihl. Sa7icf. lib. ii). R. Levi ben-Gershom recog- nises, though he does not follow, the tradition given by Jarchi, while ICimchi and Abarbanel adopt the render- ing of the Targum. This diversity of opinions proves, if it proves nothing more, that no book was known to have survived which could lay claim to the title of the book of Jasher.