Before Israel crosses the river, two men slip across it. They end up in the last house you would expect — a prostitute’s, built into the city wall — and there they meet the one person in Jericho who has heard the same news as everyone else and drawn the opposite conclusion. Rahab hides the spies, bargains for her family, and hangs a red cord in her window. The New Testament will name her three times, and once it puts her in the family tree of Jesus.
A study in Joshua 2 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 7 min read
Into The House Of A Harlot
“And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab, and lodged there.”
Joshua 2:1
The last time Israel sent spies into this land, ten of the twelve came back and broke the nation’s nerve. Joshua, who had been one of the two faithful ones, sends just two men this time, and quietly. What they find is not a report on troop strength but a person. Rahab is introduced with no varnish — the text calls her what she was — and God’s rescue of Jericho’s one believer runs straight through her door.
“The inhabitants of the city, terrified and suspicious, were constantly on the alert, and the messengers were in great danger. They were, however, preserved by Rahab, a woman of Jericho, at the peril of her own life. In return for her kindness they gave her a promise of protection when the city should be taken.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 482
I Know That The LORD Hath Given You The Land
“For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt… And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”
Joshua 2:10-11
The whole city had heard the same stories — the sea, the wilderness, the two kings east of Jordan. In everyone else the news produced only terror; in Rahab it produced a confession. She does not say “your God is strong.” She says the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath — there is no other. The difference between Rahab and her neighbours was never the information. It was what she did with it.
“All these events were known to the inhabitants of Jericho, and there were many who shared Rahab’s conviction, though they refused to obey it, that Jehovah, the God of Israel, ‘is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath.’”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 492
The Line Of Scarlet Thread
“Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee… And she bound the scarlet line in the window.”
Joshua 2:18, 21
The token is a red cord — the same cord she used to lower the spies to safety — tied where it can be seen. The pattern is one Israel already knew: a house marked, everyone inside it spared, everyone outside it not. “Whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head… and whosoever shall be with thee in the house” would live (verse 19). Rahab’s faith is not a private feeling; it goes public in a window, and it gathers her whole family under one roof to wait for the judgment to pass over.
By Faith The Harlot Rahab
“By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.”
Hebrews 11:31
The New Testament will not let Rahab go. Hebrews lists her among the heroes of faith; James points to the same act as faith proved by works — “was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers” (James 2:25); and Matthew, tracing the line of the Messiah, writes plainly, “Salmon begat Booz of Rachab” (Matthew 1:5). A Canaanite prostitute who believed becomes the great-great-grandmother of David, and an ancestor of Jesus. When Jericho falls, one household walks out alive.
“Only faithful Rahab, with her household, was spared, in fulfillment of the promise of the spies.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 491
