Joshua 10

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is a much more intimate book than The Lord of the Rings (though you wouldn't know it from Peter Jackson's cinematic adaptation), but even it ends with an epic conflict grandiosely titled "The Battle of the Five Armies" (though the book skips over describing the actual battle, in stark contrast to the films, which give the battle its own entire movie). Well, as impressive as this battle is, Joshua 10 does Tolkien one better with The Battle of the Six Armies.

The kings of five realms are melting in fear (though the author decides not to use that phrase here, for one) at the prospect of facing an alliance of both Israel and Ai--perhaps as formidable a team as the U.S. and China, or maybe Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Igoudala. So the five kings decide to join forces and attack Ai. Naturally, Ai goes running to their newfound BFFs, the Israelites, for help. Although Joshua and the Israelites were none too happy about being hornswoggled into making a treaty with the Gibeonites, they soon display their true loyalty--and mettle.

Israel marches overnight to Ai, where the battle is already in progress, taking "them by surprise" and "thr[owing] them into confusion" (verses 9, 10). Well, really, what were the five kings expecting when they lay siege to Ai? Did they think the Israelites would just sit at home, twiddling their thumbs? It's almost as if they were asking to have their butts whooped. As the five armies flee, God adds insult to injury by dropping hailstones on their heads. In fact, the hailstones kill more people than the Israelites (verse 11). I imagine even an object the size of a tangerine can do grievous or even lethal damage if dropped from around 20,000 feet.

The adrenaline flowing through him, Joshua gets a little excited and asks God to make the sun stand still--and God answers his request. Now, if God used natural forces to make the sun stand still, that means that he stopped the Earth from rotating, which I imagine would have caused planet-wide whiplash. It makes more sense if God acted outside natural laws to make the sun stand still--He is God, after all. In any case, even the author gets galvanized when writing about this most unnatural phenomenon, writing, "Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!" (verse 14).

Victory assured, the rest of this chapter is just housekeeping--similar to how the U.S. women's gymnastics team this year pretty much clinched the gold medal several events before the competition was over. The Israelites find the cave where the five kings are cowering wretchedly. If the Israelites were blunt, I imagine they would have said something like, "Oh, don't worry, we'll let you go back to your beloved cave! We're just going to drag you out briefly so we can step on your necks (verse 24), kill you, and impale you, but we'll be considerate and return your corpses to this cave!" The Israelites then attack at least six cities where the result is virtually the same--they completely destroy it and leave no survivors. The battles were probably still brutal and all, but the victories have almost become routine at this point. Must be nice.