HALE: Excellency, if you postpone a week and publish to the town that you are striving for their confessions, that speak mercy on your part, not faltering.
DANFORTH: Mr. Hale, as God have not empowered me like Joshua to stop this sun from rising, so I cannot withhold from them the perfection of their punishment.
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 4. When Danforth is asked to delay the hangings, the Deputy Governor uses the language of religion in his reply to Reverend Hale. The passage is an allusion to the prophet Joshua who with God’s help stops the sun from rising. Hale is a man transformed who now wants to save lives instead of taking them unnecessarily. But the stubborn Danforth is not for turning.