The delay which the Sun made, standing still, Scripture indicates in two ways. First (verse 13), [it indicates] it to have been as great as would suffice for routing and cutting down the enemy: “The Sun and Moon stood still, until the nation should avenge itself on its enemies” — or, as St. Augustine says (book 21 of the City of God, chapter 8), “until the battle begun should be ended in victory.” For it was for this end that this delay was asked by Joshua, as expounded above. But it must be noted, first, here, that in the Hebrew…
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…[the Israelites are called] by the name “gens” [nation], or in Hebrew goi — which some of the Rabbis think otherwise befits only idolaters. Then, that “for the nation,” in the Greek, is “God” — namely the chief author of this vengeance: ἕως ἡμύνατο ὁ θεὸς τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐτῶν (“until God avenged them of their enemies”). Secondly. In the same verse 13: “The Sun hastened not to set for the space of one day.” In which words, first, [it] displeases [me] what Abulensis teaches (questions 70 & 87): that “the space of one day” is here spoken [of] because there was then no time, but [only] as great a duration and space as there would be, if there were time. For the Translator took “a day” and “the space of a day” for the same thing — as appears from this, that there is no mention of this “space” in the Hebrew, in which [it goes] thus: “And the Sun hastened not to set, as on a completed day”; nor in the Greek, in which [it goes] thus: εἰς τέλος ἡμέρας μιᾶς (“toward the end of one day”). Then, that time can exist even if all the heavens be at rest, Physiology [natural philosophy] now admits — as is proved in Toletus, from this very passage (book 4 of the Physics, chapter 14, question 16). St. Augustine (book 11 of the Confessions, chapter 23): “Let no one tell me that the motions of the heavenly bodies are [identical with] times; because, when at someone’s wish the Sun had stood still, that the victor Joshua might carry through the battle, the Sun stood, but time went on. For through its own space of time, which was sufficient, that battle was waged and finished.”
It must be known, secondly, that concerning these same words of the text — and so concerning the time of the resting Sun — there are various opinions. The first is that of Rambam [Maimonides] and Ralbag [Gersonides], saying that [the Sun] did not rest for any moment at all, but that this day [merely] seemed to be, as it were, a complete day — that is, the longest, such as the solstitial [day] is wont to be. But these have already been refuted above; and the Hebrew commentator in the Moreh Nevuchim, Shem-Tob, says their words are “hot and windy.” The second: [that of] St. Macarius (homily 50): that it stood still for two hours — unless there be an error in it, of which afterward. The third is of those who think the Sun rested three hours — as Toletus (book 2 On Generation, chapter 11, question 10); and the same opinion is attributed to St. Augustine by the same Toletus (in the cited question of Physics book 4); but in the cited words of [Augustine] there is no word about hours. The fourth: the common [opinion], that it stood still 12 equal hours, either fully or almost fully, so that the light of that day was of 24 equal hours. The fifth: 24 hours, so that the light was of 36 hours, and the whole day of 48 hours. So R. Eliezer (chapter 51), when he says: “they stood still, each, 36 hours, until the going-out of the Sabbath.” So too, of the Rabbis, all those who hand down that the Sun stood still 12 hours at midday and as many at setting — concerning whom [see] questions 21 & 22. Of ours [Christians], perhaps St. Justin (Dialogue against Trypho, near the end). The sixth: that it stood still 36 whole hours. So, clearly, the Chaldaean Targum, at the beginning of chapter 7 of the Canticles. And the same could seem [to be] the opinion of St. Justin, already cited, because he says the Sun put off its setting for 36 hours. The seventh: counts 42 or 54 hours of this rest. For [its author] says that whole day was of 66 hours; and therefore, if “day” be taken for “light,” the Sun’s rest will have been 54 hours; if for the whole natural day, the same rest will have been 42 hours. “How long it stood still,” says Arias [Montano], “we find nothing certain in the Scriptures; although the authors of the Hebrew homilies, led by certain subtle reasons, have written that it stood still sixty-six hours.”
The fourth opinion takes me by the hand before the others, and joins me to itself: that the standstill alone was of 12 hours, the light of 24 hours, the whole time of light and night 36 [hours]…
…[of 36] hours. For, first, Ecclesiasticus teaches this in words by no means obscure (chapter 46, verse 5): “One day became as two.” For although Abulensis (question 87) delays over this [as if it meant] I know not what, it is openly refuted from the Greek, in which [it goes] thus: μία ἡμέρα ἐγένετο πρὸς δύο — that is, “one day was made into two,” or was prolonged after the manner of two days. Now, are there not “twelve hours of the day” — equal ones, namely (John 11, verse 9)? Therefore the hours of two days are 24. Secondly: our text here (verse 13): “The Sun hastened not to set for the space of one day.” But this “space” is, as I have already said, [the space] of 12 equal hours. Thirdly: lest anyone think fewer [hours] are to be given to these “hours of one day,” the Hebrew adds that “a day” must be taken full and complete: “The Sun hastened not to set, as on a complete day” — that is, for as great a time as is [the time] of a complete day. And again, lest anyone believe that more than 12 hours were added to that same day, it is said, in the same Hebrew, in the singular, “as on a day” — which the Seventy and our [Latin] rendered “a day.” Fourthly: the ancients had the same opinion. St. Dionysius the Areopagite (Epistle to Polycarp): “For one day,” he says, “the Sun and Moon stand still.” St. Ephrem (in the sermon on the sinful woman, volume three): “By the holy hands of Jesus, son of Nun, stretched out to Him who had appeared in the height of the air, and by a word alone, he made firm the course of the elements, so that one day lasted as [long as] two.” Tertullian (book Against the Psychics, chapter 10): “The Sun stood still in mid-heaven, and did not approach its setting, even to the end of one day.” St. Jerome, on Isaiah, chapter 28: “In the valley of Gabaon, under Joshua the Prince, the Sun stood still for the space of one day.” The Author On the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, chapter 4): “Thus he enclosed two days in one, and the Moon did not run on for the space of a day.”
To me it seems that the same is the mind of St. Macarius, in the cited place, when he says εἰς ὃ ἐπιτάξαι τῷ ἡλίῳ ὥρας… “two hours”? For why does no other author count only two hours, nor is there any conjecture why it should be so counted? I think it was written δύο ὧ or ωρ, or διώρα, or by the arithmetical letters ιβ [= 12]; and, with that least of letters, the iota, vanishing, there remained only β [= 2]. And in this way it can be said that that whole day — at the midday-time of which the Sun began to stand still — was of 36 hours; for the νυχθήμερον [day-and-night period] had, by the wonted manner, 24 hours, and to it were added the 12 hours of the solar rest. I confess, nevertheless, that if anyone should contend that here “day” is taken not for “light” only (which is of 12 hours), but for the nychthemeron, which is of 24 hours, then the cited Scripture-passages and the Fathers can be accommodated to him — and so much the more solidly, in that here not simply “a day” (which often signifies “light” only) is written, but “a complete day,” as if to distinguish it from that [day] which is of only 12 hours, since the completeness of [the whole day] embraces 24 hours.