Rahab: a courageous Gentile

“Hide - under here!”

The woman lifted up the flax stalks and ushered her guests into her well-concealed hiding place on the roof. They stepped in hurriedly and made themselves as small as possible in the heap of flax. She picked up several armfuls and shook them over the top of their heads.

This should do. Nobody will think to look up here.

Bang! Thud thud!

Aggressive knocking at the door below jolted her back to the reality of the situation. Her heart leapt - they had come to find the men. What would she say?

Taking a deep breath, she composed herself, smoothing her tunic as she walked calmly down the steps of her city wall house, mentally preparing for the task of ensuring her guests’ safety and potentially lying to whomever was at the door. Whoever it was and whatever request they had come to demand, she did not fear them as much as she had come to fear the God of Israel that these men served.

She had heard of how He had dried up the Red Sea, parting the waters and causing His people to cross it; not to mention how the Israelites had completely annihilated the kings of the Amorites, taking possession of all their land in an unheard of defeat. It was the talk of the city - everyone lived in fear and dread of the Israelites and their God and what would become of them should they be next.

“Open the door now, at the order of the King of Jericho”. Smothering a gasp, she peeled open the door, just enough to take in the faces of the intruders: messengers from the king himself.

“The King demands that you bring out the men immediately who have come to your house for they have come to spy out the land.”

He is the God in heaven above and earth below. I will not fear these men - what can they do to me in comparison to this God?

“Yes, the men did come to me”, she began, controlling her voice and her expressions. “But I did not know where they had come from. They left before the city gates closed and I do not know which way they went.”

Her heart was pounding as the words, which sounded so smooth and convincing on the outside but felt so wobbly and unrehearsed on the inside, flowed out in an authoritative tone.

“If you hurry, you might catch them up.”

Surely they won’t fall for this. But what else can I say? I would rather be captured myself than allow these men, who serve the living God, to be caught. What has happened to me? What will my family think?

Her mind wandered to her parents - so fervent in their desire to find out for themselves who this God of Israel was. She had ridiculed them at first - what would a God who claimed to know and love His people want to do with her? In Jericho they worshipped the many gods of the Canaanite religion, offering sacrifices and prostituting themselves in the temple in order to please them. Her whole livelihood, in fact, revolved around prostituting herself, and she wasn’t about to give up this lucrative income for the sake of another nation’s god.

As time had gone on, though, and more and more stories had emerged of the continuous victories of this strange group of people, she had grown curious and slightly fearful, along with the rest of her people. How could they be so successful, time and time again, even to the point of crossing the largest body of water on dry land in order to escape the most powerful army of the region?

And why would a God want anything to do with her, a filthy prostitute? The only men who wanted her were the ones who crept in under cover of darkness only to use her and throw her in the gutter.

But as her curiosity grew, something strange began to grow inside of her. Within her usually cold, unpenetrative heart, she felt something soften. She felt a desire grow that she had not known before. Her life started to feel very empty and broken as she thought about this God, who declared Himself ‘holy’. Where she normally felt numb and hardened to her acts of impurity, she began to feel ashamed and broken. It had become so bad that she had recently started turning men away, claiming that she was sick and infectious. None of it made sense, but all she knew was that an insatiable desire to know this God for herself was growing at an unexpected rate.

When she had received a knock at the door only one hour earlier, she was completely unprepared for a visit from these people herself. Of course, for them, a prostitute was an obvious place to hide, as the city was used to seeing men come and go through her front door. Everything in her had leapt with excitement as she welcomed them in, overjoyed that she finally had the opportunity to meet them and serve them and their God.

“Let us leave immediately”. The words startled her back to the king’s men at the door. “We must catch them before dark”.

It’s worked! Her lies had been convincing enough to persuade the men to leave: she had saved the spies! She hurried upstairs, eager to pass on the news to her hidden guests, and usher them safely on their way before nightfall.

As they silently crept out of their hiding place and down the stairs, she felt courage rise within her to make her own request. It had been forming in her mind ever since she had opened the door to find the very people who had come to destroy her city wanting to take refuge in her home. Her heart had skipped a beat - not just because of the request they were making of her, and not even because this could provide her with a means of escape from the destruction to come, but more so because she might finally have an opportunity to know this God of theirs for herself. Perhaps she could have a second chance at life. A chance to become someone other than ‘the harlot on the city wall’. A chance to mean something to someone.

Or maybe their God is too holy for me. Perhaps I deserve to be destroyed in this way.

Shaking off the doubts and feeling of unworthiness that screamed in her mind, she began cautiously: “I know that the Lord God has given you this land”. They donned hooded cloaks for the journey ahead. “The Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below”. It felt liberating to declare this. She had known it in her heart for some time but hadn’t actually confessed it out loud. Now that she did, she knew there was no going back. She wanted to be changed, to know this God and to be part of the family of His people.

“Please swear to me that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them - and that you will save us from death.”

Will they agree? Or do they just want to use me? So many men have come through these doors to get what they need and then drop me.

“Our lives for yours,” they cut across her thoughts with a tone full of grace and reassurance.

Really? Am I really going to be saved from this destruction? Have I really been given a second chance?

“It shall be, when the Lord has given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with you”.

As she let them down by a rope through the window, a feeling that she had never felt before flooded her whole being - relief, joy, gratitude, excitement, hope. What was to come? What would her life look like in this future world? Who would she become?

She didn’t know right now, but what she did know was that she was a changed woman. Her journey to knowing this God had just begun and she couldn’t wait to bind a scarlet rope to her window as a sign of her sure salvation.

Questions:

This is just my interpretation of how Rahab might have felt throughout this encounter.

Read Joshua 2 for yourself and then reflect on the following questions:

1. What stands out to you from this story?

2. What do you think made Rahab decide to hide these men in her home?

3. How must she have felt when the King’s men arrived to seek them out and she had to face the decision of what to say to them?

4. What do you think drew Rahab to find out more about the God of Israel?

5. Read Hebrews 11:31. What does this add to your understanding of Rahab’s decision to hide the spies?

6. Now read Joshua 6:17 and Matthew 1:1-16. What became of Rahab and her descendants?

7. Read Ephesians 2:19 and reflect on how this applies to Rahab.

8. What parallels can we draw between Rahab’s life and ours?