indeed, I seemed to find a double or even threefold[4] copy of the
Decalogue. Comprising Deuteronomy within my view, I met two utterly
incompatible accounts of Aaron's death; for Deuteronomy makes him
die _before_ reaching Meribah Kadesh, where, according to Numbers, he
sinned and incurred the penalty of death (Num. xx. 24, Deut x. 6: cf
Num. xxxiii. 31, 38).

That there was error on a great scale in all this, was undeniable;
and I began to see at least one _source_ of the error. The celebrated
miracle of "the sun standing still" has long been felt as too violent
a derangement of the whole globe to be used by the most High as a
means of discomfiting an army: and I had acquiesced in the idea that
the miracle was _ocular_ only. But in reading the passage, (Josh. x.
12-14,) I for the first time observed that the narrative rests on the
authority of a poetical book which bears the name of Jasher.[5] He who
composed--"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the
valley of Ajalon!"--like other poets, called on the Sun and Moon to
stand and look on Joshua's deeds; but he could not anticipate that
his words would be hardened into fact by a prosaic interpreter, and
appealed to in proof of a stupendous miracle. The commentator
could not tell what _the Moon_ had to do with it; yet he has quoted
honestly.--This presently led me to observe other marks that the
narrative has been made up, at least in part, out of old poetry.
Of these the most important are in Exodus xv. and Num. xxi., in the
latter of which three different poetical fragments are quoted, and
one of them is expressly said to be from "the book of the wars of
Jehovah," apparently a poem descriptive of the conquest of Canaan by
the Israelites. As for Exodus xv. it appeared to me (in that stage,
and after so abundant proof of error,) almost certain that Moses' song
is the primitive authority, out of which the prose narrative of the