Josh 10:14

“And there was no day like that, before it, or after it,.... Which must be understood as referring not to natural days, or such as are according to the natural course of things, as those in the northern and southern poles, which are much longer, but to miraculous and extraordinary ones: never was there such a day as this, occasioned by the sun standing still; and as for Hezekiah's day, which is objected, when the sun went ten degrees backward on the dial of Ahaz, it is not certain whether those degrees were hours, or half hours, or quarters of an hour; and if they were hours, as the going backwards was at once, in a moment, it could only make an addition of ten hours in the return of them, and so it must make but a day of twenty two hours: besides, the writer of this book only speaks of days that had been in his time, and not of what might be hereafter; add to which, that this respects not so much the length of the day, as the manner in which it became so long; and especially it regards the following circumstance, being at the entreaty of a man, and that delivered in a very authoritative manner: that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man; expressed in prayer, and which prayer was a prayer of faith: for the Lord fought for Israel: by casting hailstones upon their enemies, and preserving them from them by the stopping the course of the sun, until they had taken full vengeance on them. The day on which this miracle was wrought, is conjectured to be Wednesday the eleventh of April, in the year before Christ 1454 (n). (n) Bedford's Chronology, p. 492.”

“And there was no day like that - There was no period of time in which the sun was kept so long above the horizon as on that occasion. Some learned men have supposed that the Fable of Phaeton was founded on this historic fact. The fable may be seen with all the elegance of poetic embellishment in the commencement of the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses; but I confess I can see nothing in the pretended copy that can justify the above opinion.”

“Long. This word is not found in Hebrew, “and there was no day like that, before it, or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto,” &c. But God had often wrought miracles before, at the prayer of his servants. The difference between this day and all others, must be therefore in the length, or in the stopping of the heavenly bodies. (Haydock) — The long day which the prayer of Ezechias procured, (4 Kings xx., and Isaias xxxviii.) consisted of 32 hours; or, supposing that the retrograde motion of the sun was instantaneous on the dial, it might only be 22 hours in length. (Calmet) — But if the day of Ezechias had been even longer, the words of this text may be verified, that neither in times past, nor while the author lived, had any such day been known. See Amama, p. 383. (Haydock) — Obeying. God is ready to grant the requests of his servants, Isaias lviii. 9. “We remark something still stronger, in the power which he has given to priests, to consecrate the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the eucharist.” (Calmet)”