Despite our past, God can use anybody willing to trust, believe

Rahab the prostitute showed her faith through action

Joshua 2-6

Rahab cradled her baby Boaz as he slept contentedly in her arms.

“A miracle,” she thought. There was no other way to explain the existence of the beautiful boy but to call him a miracle of God.

Boaz was the creation of a 50-year-old Canaanite woman and an Israelite, named Salmon of the Tribe of Judah. Canaanites were the hated enemies of Israel.  In fact, God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 20 to “utterly destroy” Canaanites and other cultures living in the land promised to God’s chosen people.

Yet, here she sat contentedly, a new mom living in a new Jericho during a time when girls as young as 12,13 or 14 became engaged and planned marriages.

Rahab’s life didn’t follow the norms of ancient culture. Her earlier years were spent in prostitution. She was named one of the four most beautiful women of the Old Testament world, along with Sarah, Abigail, and Esther. In fact, legend has it that Rahab was so beautiful that the very mention of her name could cause arousal in men.

In Rahab’s younger days, before the Israelites invaded, Jericho was a wicked city inhabited by pagan-worshipping Canaanites who were under God’s condemnation. The main gods were called El, Ba’al and Dagon and the main goddess was Asherah or Ashtoreth, the goddess of the moon. In this town was centered all the vilest and most degrading religions of the Canaanites.

Also, this corrupt, depraved, pagan culture had the added distinction of being the most important Canaanite fortress city in the Jordan Valley, operating as a stronghold directly in the path of the advancing Israelites.

As an enterprising young woman, Rahab operated both a brothel and an Inn in the city wall of the fortified Jericho. Because of her strategic location, men came either to purchase her services or to secure a safe, clean place to stay after a long journey. Either way, Rahab stayed abreast of the latest news. She had heard from the many customers how the Israelites escaped from Egypt, crossed the Red Sea on dry land under the leadership of a man named Moses. Some men, no doubt in elaborate terms and with excited details, talked about the Jews’ years in the wilderness, how this nomadic people survived on wafers called manna and quails. The tales did more than produce wide-eyed fascination in Rahab; the harlot began to crave a hunger to know more about the God of Israel who loved and protected his monotheistic people.

When her clients told of Israel’s victory over the Amorites and how the Jews had camped at Shittim, Rahab knew instinctively as a perceptive, intelligent and well-informed woman that the Canaanites were in for the fight of their lives. The key question for her was WHEN.

At that time, Shittim was a large area in the plains of Moab directly across from Jericho, immediately east of the Jordan and north of the Dead Sea. It was hard to determine the intent of the Israelites; they were camped at the site a long time.

A lot was happening at Shittim, however.

Numbers 22-24 tells how King Balak of Moab hired a pagan seer named Balaam to curse the Jews and prevent them from entering Canaan. Instead, Balaam ended up blessing the name of Israel.

About 24,000 men died from a plague, as reported in Numbers 26, because the Israelites were enticed into idolatrous Baal worship and immoral sexual relations with Moabite and Midianite women. They learned and should have already known that God doesn’t play. They were punished for their unfaithfulness.

Moses, at this time, took a census of the men in the 12 tribes who were ready for battle. They were preparing to enter Canaan, according to Numbers 26. With God’s leadership, the Israelites defeated the Midianites.

And finally, Moses delivered his farewell speech because his disobedience forced God to prohibit him from entering the Promised Land. The 82-year-old Joshua was declared Moses’ successor in Deuteronomy 31, a role that weighed heavily on Moses’ assistant who witnessed how Moses had failed once at the task of leading God’s people to Canaan.

 A month after Moses’ death, the Jews prepared themselves for the invasion of Canaan. Joshua sent two spies to see firsthand how the Canaanites were preparing for war. As they slipped into the fortified city, they immediately arrived at Rahab’s Inn in the city wall.

News traveled quickly and the king heard that two strangers had entered Rahab’s Inn. Of course, strangers often secretly entered the house of a harlot; that was its purpose. The spies had sought anonymity in a location that prided itself on not revealing the names of clients or the services sought.

God works in mysterious ways. Rahab’s home was God ordained hiding place for the two Israelites.

It was dusk by the time the king’s guards arrived at Rahab’s house, Joshua 2:3-5 NLT, says she sent the guards in a different direction.

“Rahab had hidden the two men, but she replied, ‘Yes, the men were here earlier, but I didn’t know where they were from.They left the town at dusk, as the gates were about to close. I don’t know where they went. If you hurry, you can probably catch up with them.’”

Rahab relayed the information with such urgency that the guards feared they couldn’t stop to search her house because the spies might get away if they did.

Once Rahab was certain the guards had accepted her lie, she went to her rooftop where she had hidden the Jewish spies beneath bundles of flax. She offered assurances and then negotiated her safety and that of her family.

“I know the Lord has given you this land,” Rahab told the two spies in Joshua 2: 9, NLT.

“We are all afraid of you,” she continued through verses 14. “Everyone in the land is living in terror.For we have heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt. And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, whose people you completely destroyed.No wonder our hearts have melted in fear! No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below.”

Acutely aware of her opportunity, Rahab added, “Now swear to me by the Lord that you will be kind to me and my family since I have helped you. Give me some guarantee thatwhen Jericho is conquered, you will let me live, along with my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all their families.”

The spies readily agreed to her terms:“We offer our own lives as a guarantee for your safety. If you don’t betray us, we will keep our promise and be kind to you when the Lord gives us the land.”

Rahab used a scarlet rope to let the spies down from a window of her house. She suggested that they hide in the mountains for three days before returning to the Israeli camp in Shittim.

To seal the deal, the spies asked Rahab to tie the scarlet rope in her window during the invasion so that it could be clearly seen by the Israelites when they reached the city wall. The scarlet thread would identify Rahab’s house and all the family members inside. Anyone outside the house would surely be killed, they warned.

When the spies reported back to Joshua all they had learned during their reconnaissance, the Israelites quickly finalized plans for the invasion.

Once they reached the banks of the Jordan River, they waited three days and then entered the land of Canaan in a fashion reminiscent of their parents’ trek through the Red Sea. The Jordan River was full to overflowing, yet the waters stopped when the priests who carried the holy ark waded into the river.

The Israelites’ approach to war was unique under God’s tutelage. In the Battle of Jericho, the first battle fought by the Israelites in the course of the conquest of Canaan, the Israelites silently marched around the city walls once a day for six days and then seven times on the seventh day. As they completed the final round, seven priests blew trumpets of rams’ horns and all the people bellowed a thunderous shout. The city walls fell flat, everything was destroyed, and every man, woman, and child in it were killed. Only Rahab and her family were spared.

The Jews brought a new way of life.

“What a miracle,” Rahab thought, smiling as she mentally recounted her marriage and her newborn baby, which made her the great-great-grandmother of King David.

Rahab is a direct ancestor of Jesus Christ all because this former prostitute declared to the spies: “The Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.”

Written by TMCH

All biblical references in the story are from the King James Version unless noted otherwise.

SOURCES:

Boling, Robert G. (1981). Joshua, Vol.6. Anchor Bible Series. Pp 144-145.

Christianity.com. Editorial Staff April 1, 2019. https://www.christianity.com/author/christianitycom-editorial-staff/

Easton, Matthew George (1897). “Rahab.” Easton’s Bible Dictionary (New and Revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.

“Who was Rahab in the Bible?” “Why did the Israelite spies visit the house of Rahab the prostitute?” “What is the significance of Shittim in the Bible?”

GotQuestions.org.

Mindel, Nissan. Rahab. Kehot Publication Society.

Pritchard, Rav. Rahab: Harlot, Liar … Ancestor of Jesus?

https://www.christianity.com/jesus/birth-of-jesus/genealogy-and-jewish-heritage/rahab-harlot-liar-ancestor-of-jesus.html.

Wikipedia. Rahab. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rahab&oldid=1128442666