People have differing backgrounds and biases which influence what and how they learn Torah.  My educational background is in biology and I tend to learn Torah through the perspective of a biologist. This article focuses on those aspects of biology/biomedicine in sefer Yehoshua (Joshua) and in sefer Shoftim (Judges).

Joshua (Yehoshua)

As the opening book of  Nach, this sefer begins with the entry of B’nei Yisrael into the land of Israel, the subsequent conquest of most of the indigenous idol-worshipping populations, and the establishment of monotheism in the land of Israel. Upon entry, the initial encounter of B’nei YIsrael was with the city of Jericho and its miraculous destruction, which set the tone that conquest of the land would entail a strong miraculous component with the involvement of HaShem.  An interesting comparison between the miracles of the ten plaques in Egypt and the miracles performed during the conquest of the land of Israel is that the latter left no doubt that the events were truly from HaShem.  For example, when B’nei Yisrael crossed the Jordan River to enter into the land of Israel, it simply notes, “the waters of the Jordan will be cut off – the waters that descend from upstream – and they will stand as one column” (Joshua 3:13). No mention was made of the need for an outside, natural force to split the waters. When fleeing from Egypt, the liberated slaves encountered their first obstacle, with the Red Sea acting as a barrier to hinder their escape. Miraculously, the Red Sea split, walls of water formed to allow safe passage for the fleeing Jew.  In describing the splitting of the Red Sea an additional piece of information was noted that was not mentioned in the splitting of the Jordan River. Regarding the splitting of the Red Sea it was stated, “Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and HaShem drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split “ (Shmot 14:21). The splitting of the Red Sea, but not of the Jordan River,  incorporated a natural cause-and-effect. Bible “critics” are quick to jump upon the mention of a strong east wind and to wrongly use this piece of information to note that the splitting of the Red Sea was not a miracle, but rather that it occurred through a natural phenomenon, i.e., the strong east wind.  [As an aside, the occurrence of most, if not all, of the ten plagues can be explained, erroneously, to have occurred through natural phenomena.]  

Why the difference between the two miraculous events? The population fleeing from Egypt consisted of people with a slave mentality, a group who was unsophisticated, uneducated, and unable to analyze the nature of a miracle. However, in sefer Yehoshua, the Jewish people had matured.  The young Jewish nation was a population who had studied Torah during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. This group, in contrast, was educated, sophisticated, and cable of analyzing the nature of a miracle. However, upon entering the land of Israel, they probably were scared and uncertain of the extent to which HaShem would be involved with their conquest of the land. Thus, this specific group “needed” miracles that were unambiguous as to their origins - that is, the miracles were 100% from HaShem without a miniscule thought that they were a natural occurrence.

This idea is seen also when Yehoshua battled the five Amorite kings in Gibeon, southern Israel. Yehoshua led a preemptive strike; Hashem told Yehoshua not to worry as the victory would be his. HaShem participated in the battle by inducing panic in the minds of the Amorite army, causing them to flee. “HaShem confounded  them  before Israel and smote them with a mighty blow at Gibeon” (Joshua 10:10). Much later in time (Shmuel aleph, chapter 7), when the Jewish army was to battle the Philistines at Mizpah, before the battle began, HaShem confounded the minds of the Philistine soldiers, causing them to flee in confusion. At first glance, HaShem’s impact seems equivalent in both battles. But there is a subtle difference between the two events. In battling the Amorites, HaShem Himself directly initiated the panic attack in the minds of the Amorite army, without the need of props, whereas in battling the Philistines, HaShem orchestrated the occurrence of thunder and lightning to generate the panic attack in the minds of the Philistine army.

Yehoshua’s achievements in battling the Amorites were so successful that he wanted to continue fighting even though night time (some say, Shabbos) was approaching. Yehoshua exclaimed, “Sun stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the valley of Ajalon” (chapter 10:12).  As written, it would seem that the cycling of day and night involves the rotation of the sun around planet Earth. Actually, we now know that the sun is at the center of the universe, with the planets orbiting it. It takes one year for planet Earth to orbit the sun. While revolving around the sun, the Earth rotates on its axis causing the daily pattern of night and day. Thus, Yehoshua was calling it as he saw it, but actually, it was the Earth that stopped rotating on its axis.  

Surprisingly, I was unable to identify events of biological/biomedical significance in sefer Yehoshua. However, one item that was of interest is the hamstringing of horses.  Upon conquering the southern half of the land of Israel, Joshua turned his attention to the northern half (Joshua, chapter 11). King Jabin, leader of the various northern kingdoms, organized a gathering of the various northern kings, forming a huge army to fight against the Jews.  As guided by HaShem, Joshua organized an preemptive attack and destroyed the northern kings. “HaShem said to Joshua. ‘ Do not fear them, for tomorrow at this time I will deliver them all as corpses before Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots in fire’” (Joshua 11:6). 

With regards to a horse, the hamstring is a group of muscles (biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus) located at the back of the hind leg. These muscles control kicking and rear and forward movement. Hamstringing a horse is to cause a severe  injury of these muscles by trauma or cutting, with the intent of crippling the horse,  leading to mechanical lameness characterized by a hopping or skipping gait. Such horses were useless in battle.

The chariots and war horses were booty captured by the Jewish army. Why did Hashem  want these items destroyed?  During difficult times, with antisemitic peoples lurking behind every bush, ready to do battle against the Jewish people, HaShem wanted the Jewish people to have trust in Him, rather than in chariots and war horses (or, modern day tanks and airplanes).  

Judges (Shoftim)

The sefer commences with the tribes of Yehudah and Shimon joining to wage war against the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Successful in their battle, the Jewish army captured the    leader, Adoni-bezek. “..and they caught him and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.  And Adoni-bezek said, ‘Seventy kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered food under my table; as I have done, so has G-d punished me’” (1:6-7). Adoni-bezek was sadistic and upon capturing kings in battles, he amputated their thumbs and great toes. These mutilated kings were treated as dogs, kept under Adoni-bezek’s table, to fight amongst themselves for scraps of food that fell during a meal. Adoni-bezek had done to him what he had done to others, and he accepted this punishment as the will of G-d.

For what purpose did Adoni-bezek mutilate the  kings captured in battle? Loss of the thumb, i.e., the first digit on the hand, reduces hand functionality by 40%. The thumb plays a crucial role in fine motor skills, pinching, and grasping. By amputating the thumbs of his captives, Adoni-bezek prevented the possibility of these kings grasping a sword and attempting to slay him.  Loss of the big toe, i.e., the first digit of the foot, increases the risks of falls, thereby hindering the captured kings from escaping.

Judges (3:12-25). B’nei Yisrael were under the thumb of Moab, led by the obese king, Eglon. HaShem sent Ehud ben Gera as the savior, described as a man with a shriveled right hand (3:15). A shriveled hand may refer to a physical condition in which the muscles are shrunken and atrophied and the limb is shorter than it should be; the cause may have been due to infantile paralysis. Such a hand is non-functional, unable to grasp objects.

Ehud trained so that his left hand became functional; apparently, this was unknown to Eglon. For the purpose of assassinating Eglon, Ehud fashioned a double-edged sword and girded it on his right thigh under his clothing.  Most warriors were right-handed and girded their sword on their left thigh. To an observer, the lack of a protrusion bulging from under Ehud’s clothing on the left side would indicate that he was unarmed. Thus, in Ehud’s encounter with Eglon, it was not obvious to Eglon that Ehud, a man with a shriveled right hand, was armed with a sword and that his left hand was functional. Fast forward  in the story,  Ehud arranged for an encounter with Eglon, when alone, “Ehud stretched out his left hand and took the sword from his right thigh and thrust it into his (i.e., Eglon’s) belly.”  

Chapter 4 notes the battle between the king of Canaan, whose army was led by Sisera, and the Jewish army, led by Barak and with support from the prophetess, Deborah. Sisera came with 900 iron chariots, and many foot soldiers. Barak’s army consisted of 10,000 men. However, it was not much of a battle, as “HaShem confused Sisera and all the chariots and all of the camp with the edge of the sword before Barak” (4:15). Sisera flees on foot as his entire army was destroyed, arriving at, and seeking refuge in, the tent of Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite. Yael would kill Sisera. Her gameplan was as follows: she would tire Sisera though excessive intimacy (sex), put him into a deep sleep by consumption of warm milk, and finally kill him by driving a metal peg into his temple. The feeling of tiredness after intimacy is due to several factors, including: (a) a rush of sleep-inducing hormones, including oxytocin, prolactin, serotonin, and melatonin; (b) physical exertion, (c) stress reduction, and (d) feeling emotionally spent. Sisera was intimate seven times with Yael. There is some evidence that consumption of warm milk induces sleep. Factors for the consumption of warm milk promoting sleep are that milk contains (a) the amino acid, tryptophan, which is a precursor in the synthesis of the brain neurotransmitter, serotonin, an inducer of sleep, and of melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleep and (b) calcium, which relaxes muscles. Furthermore, the warmth of milk has a soothing effect which aids in inducing sleep.

Rabbi Joseph Karo explained that HaShem confused Sisera’s army with thunder, which caused them to panic and stab each other.  This technique of using loud noises to confuse the enemy was employed by the fledgling Israeli army in their War of Independence in the form of the Davidka, a homemade mortar. Used in Jerusalem and Safed, its bombs were extremely loud, but very inaccurate and of little value beyond terrifying the Arab soldiers.

The noise was its most important effect, increasing the fear factor present in war. The Arabs abandoned many strongholds during the war as a direct result of this visceral fear. Knowing that many of the designers of America's atomic bomb were Jewish (e.g., Einstein and Oppenheimer), the Arabs thought that they were being attacked with atomic weapons.

The ”Song of Devorah” in Chapter 5, is a hymn (a) of gratitude to HaShem for His role in the miraculous defeat of the Canaanites, (b) of recognition of those tribes who selflessly participated in the battle, (c) of severe rebuke of those tribes who were indifferent, and (d) of a praise of women, Yael in particular. Verse 23 is a bit unusual, as it states, “Curse Meroz,” said the angel of HaShem, “Curse! Cursed are its inhabitants, for they failed to come to the aid of HaShem, to the aid of Hashem against the mighty.”  The identity of Meroz is a mystery, with one thought that Meroz was a great individual who refused to join the war against the Canaanites or perhaps was a nearby city whose inhabitants refused to aid Barak.  Another thought is the Meroz refers to a planet whose inhabitants refused to aid Devorah and Barak in their battle against the Canaanites. If so, this is one of the Torah sources for extraterrestrial life.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in the  chapter, “On Extraterrestrial Life,” in his book, The Aryeh Kaplan Reader (Artscroll Mesorah Publ., Ltd. , 2002), notes early Jewish thought on the existence of extraterrestrial life. As expected, the responses span the spectrum.   Chasdai Crescas (1344-1411 ) stated that nothing in Jewish thought negates the existence of life on other planets. In contrast, Rabbi Yosef Albo (1380-1444) in sefer Ikkarim, concluded that there was no extraterrestrial life. Lastly, Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz (1765-1861) in Sefer Habris held  that alien life does exist, but that these creatures lack free will.  Rabbi Efrem  Goldberg, in his recent AISH HaTorah (2025) article, “UFOS and Jews Living on a Different Planet,” provided the opinions of more current Jewish scholars. Rav J.B. Soloveitchik said: “It is possible that Hashem created other life forms on other planets. It is no problem to Judaism.” According to Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky: “There may or may not be living creatures in outer space but there cannot be human like creatures with free will. The Torah was given only to the Jewish people on planet Earth, and God would not have created creatures with free will but without a Torah to guide them.” Lastly, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, was cited as acknowledging that there is support in Torah that life exists on other planets. Yet, alien  life could neither be intelligent nor similar to human life, as If they were, they would need Torah to guide them. Human beings and extraterrestrials could not have the same Torah, since it was only revealed on Earth and relevant to human beings. Aliens could not have a different Torah, since there is only one truth.

 There is a famous conversation between Dr. Velvl Greene, a noted microbiologist enlisted by NASA in their project to determine if there is life on Mars, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Dr. Greene asked if this was something he should be doing. The Lubavitcher Rebbe replied, “Dr. Greene, look for life on Mars! And if you don’t find it there, look somewhere else in the universe for it. Because for you to sit here and say there is no life outside of planet Earth, is to put limitations on the Creator, and that is not something any of His creatures can do!”

Acknowledgment. Appreciation is expressed to Rabbi Yisrael Reisman, Rav, Agudath Yisrael of Madison, Brooklyn, NY and Rosh HaYeshivah, Mesivta Torah Vodaath, Brooklyn, NY. for reviewing the Torah content of this article.