First, the passage in question:
'On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel,
“Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.”
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
There is no known ancient Hebrew aphorism to the effect mentioned in the OP. However, there are notable rabbis who interpreted the story poetically. (It should be noted that this is a minority opinion; Talmudic sources, on the contrary, take the report at face value.) Some have understood Joshua to be singing a song of praise to God in these verses, describing how the victory appeared in the hearts of the Israelites rather than declaring that the sun actually stood still. This is hinted at in Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed 2:35:
We must not be misled by the account that the light of the sun stood
still certain hours for Joshua, when “he said in the sight of Israel,”
etc.
Gersonides, (Levi ben Gershon - 14th c) speaks more clearly to this effect:
Gersonides was convinced that there was no miracle. If the sun had
miraculously stood still, Joshua would have performed a greater
miracle than Moses. Moses, Gersonides contends, never performed a
miracle in which nature was changed. This supposed fact of a sun
standing still, he states, contradicts Deuteronomy 34:10–12, where the
Bible clearly testifies that no one performed greater miracles than
Moses... Therefore, Gersonides suggests that Joshua was speaking
figuratively; he was actually saying that it was a wonder that he and
his army were able to defeat the forces of five nations during such a
short period, in a single day, while the sun was still shining.
So, while there is no Hebrew aphorism as described in the OP, there is indeed a rabbinical tradition that "the sun stood still" should be interpreted figuratively: God would not have allowed the day to end until the Israelites were victorious, but the sun did not literally stand still.
