When, at Joshua’s command, “the sun stood still” and the Israelites slew the Amorites for an entire day, we might ask if the sun actually stood still or if another, unseen phenomenon was at work: “Then spoke Joshua to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah delivered up the Amorites before the people of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still upon Gibeon, and you, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!’ And the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves on their enemies” (Joshua 10:12–13). Or, when “the sun reversed its descent by ten degrees on the dial” during Hezekiah’s illness as a sign he would recover (Isaiah 38:8).
Or when Zenif’s far outnumbered army in the land of Nephi twice fought the hostile Lamanites in the strength of the Lord: “In the strength of the Lord did we go forth to battle against the Lamanites; for I and my people did cry mightily to the Lord that he would deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, for we were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers. And God did hear our cries, and did answer our prayers; and we did go forth in his might; yea, we did go forth against the Lamanites, and in one day and a night we did slay three thousand and forty-three; we did slay them even until we had driven them out of our land” (Mosiah 9:16–18).
Such time slippages aren’t limited to warfare or near dear experiences as with Joshua, Zenif, and Hezekiah. Twice, Jesus went through the midst of people intent on harming him without their seeing him: “All they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way” (Luke 4:28–30); “Then they took up stones to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by” (John 8:59).
This phenomenon of time dilation will surely become more common as the earth transitions from a telestial to a terrestrial state, especially as God’s end-time people participate in the prophesied callout into the wilderness to escape the destruction of “Babylon in God’s Day of Judgment. Without being endowed with power over the elements, including time, how shall the Lord’s end-time servant and the spiritual kings and queens of the Ephraimite Gentiles be enabled to bring Israel’s righteous remnants of the Jews, Ten Tribes, and Lamanites in the new exodus through the fire, rivers, seas, mountains, and through the midst of threatening enemies to Zion?
