Claim 1 Joshua spoke to the Lord.
Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when the Amorites arrived in Israel.
The stated premise implies that Joshua spoke to the Lord, and in the sight of Israel, he asked the Sun to stand still upon Gibeon and the Moon to stand still in the valley of Ajalon. The premise implies that Joshua prayed to God for a miracle, possibly a cloudy day, that could increase the chances of victory for the Israeli people. It is not known if Joshua asked specifically for a miracle, a victory, a cloudy day, or a chance for the enemy’s forces to get confused in time.
Claim 2 The Lord listened to Joshua.
Joshua spoke to the Lord; the Lord favored Joshua’s request and made a miracle. The premise states that for the first time known to the people, God “hearkened unto the voice of man,” he listened to Joshua and miraculously made the Sun and the Moon stop. The text states that this was God’s way to fight for Israel along with his people. The implied premise is that because of a concatenation of circumstances of weather conditions, the enemy’s forces were weakened, which led to a victory for the Israeli people.
Claim 3 The Sun stood still.
The Sun shined for a whole day and did not go down until the people had “avenged themselves upon their enemies.” The premise states that the Sun and the Moon stood still because God was helping the Israeli people. The implied premise is that due to unknown weather conditions, the time boundaries of daytime and nighttime became imperceptible. The text could also suggest that due to high solar activity, the daytime was elongated a little, which emphasized the fact that the Lord was fighting for Israel.
In conclusion, the passage is written in poetic form to emphasize the miraculous victory and imply that the victory was possible because of God’s work. While the exact weather conditions on that day are unknown, it is obvious that they were unusual to the people to the point of connecting them to God’s work. It is unknown whether the passage implied a cloudy day with an insensible timeline of daytime and nighttime or a day of high solar activity with elongated daytime.