Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon

Joshua 10:12–13:

12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon."

13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

John Martin painted this scene in 1816, taking inspiration from Joshua 10:12–13, where Joshua asks God to halt the sun and moon so Israel can finish the battle against the Amorites. Martin doesn't illustrate a clash of armies directly; instead, he builds a vast biblical landscape shaped by light and atmosphere. The distant city—likely meant to evoke Gibeon—sits on a plateau under a break in the clouds, where a supernatural shaft of sunlight cuts through the storm. That dramatic sky is Martin's main tool here: nature itself reacts to the command, turning the moment into something cosmic rather than military.

Joshua and his army appear at the lower right, miniature against the terrain, with Joshua raising his arm toward the heavens. Their small scale is deliberate. Martin often used this contrast to frame human events against overwhelming divine intervention. What we know from the text is simple: the daylight stops moving. Martin translates that into a frozen sky—storm on one side, radiance on the other—capturing the instant when time bends to a single prayer.