The Ayalon Valley (Emek Ayalon) is the broad valley northwest of Jerusalem where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still during the battle against the five Amorite kings: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon” (Joshua 10:12). The miracle, one of the most extraordinary in the Bible, gave the Israelites time to complete their victory and established Joshua’s authority as Moses’ successor.
The Battle
The Gibeonites, who had tricked Joshua into a peace treaty, were attacked by a coalition of five Amorite kings. The Gibeonites called on Joshua for help, and God intervened dramatically: first with hailstones that killed more of the enemy than the Israelite swords, and then by stopping the sun in the sky to extend the day: “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being” (Joshua 10:13-14).
Gibeonite Deception
The battle at Ayalon only happened because the Gibeonites had tricked Joshua into a peace treaty. When the Canaanite cities heard about Israel’s victories at Jericho and Ai, the Gibeonites, who lived just north of Jerusalem, devised a ruse: they dressed in worn-out clothes, carried moldy bread and cracked wineskins, and told Joshua they had come from a distant land. Joshua made a treaty with them without consulting God. Three days later, Israel discovered that the Gibeonites were actually neighbors, and the treaty could not be broken: “We have given them our oath by the Lord, the God of Israel, and we cannot touch them now” (Joshua 9:19). When the five Amorite kings attacked the Gibeonites for making peace with Israel, Joshua was bound by his oath to come to their defense, and the battle of Ayalon followed.
The story teaches that even a treaty obtained by deception is binding once sworn in God’s name. Centuries later, King Saul would violate this treaty by killing Gibeonites, and the resulting famine that struck Israel (2 Samuel 21:1) confirmed that God took the oath seriously. The sun standing still at Ayalon was the consequence of a deception, a treaty, and an oath that bound Israel for generations.
Geography
The valley has been one of the most strategic corridors in the land of Israel for thousands of years. It connects the coastal plain to the hill country around Jerusalem, and every army that has sought to conquer Jerusalem from the west has passed through this valley: the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, the British, and the Israeli forces in 1948. The Latrun fortress, at the mouth of the valley, controlled this passage and was the site of fierce fighting during the War of Independence.
Latrun
The Latrun area, at the western entrance to the Ayalon Valley, includes the Trappist monastery with its wines, the Yad LaShiryon armored corps museum (one of the largest tank museums in the world), and the Burma Road, the improvised bypass road that saved besieged Jerusalem in 1948.
Visit with Hoshen Tours
The Ayalon Valley connects Joshua’s miracle to 3,000 years of military history. Hoshen Tours reads Joshua 10 in the valley and tells the story of the sun standing still in the sky.