Rahab

This is a long post but interesting none the less.

Currently at church and Bible study we are working our way through Joshua (great book) and one person intrigued me - Rahab.

Basically Rahab was a Canaanite in Jericho, she was a prostitute and hid the spies that Joshua had sent into Jericho to see what was happening. She lied to the king about were the spies were and because of her faithfulness and trust in the Lord her and her family were the only ones in Jericho who were saved. She married one of the Israelites (Salmon) and appears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

My problem was why was she allowed to live when God had clearly stated that all Canaanites we to be killed.

So here follows some quotes from the bible and other interesting stuff:

All quotes are from the NIV

Firstly: Gods orders to the Israelites regarding Canaan and other peoples:

Deuteronomy 7:1-5 1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations-- the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

Pretty clear on the subject about what to do with them I think. Then later in Deuteronomy we have this interesting bit:

Deuteronomy 21:10-14 10 When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

Here we have God allowing them to intermarry if they find a woman that pleases them. Could this override the previous verses. I don’t think so because he expressly says they are not to intermarry with the Canaanites.

Lets bring Rahab in:

Joshua 2:1-6 1 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. "Go, look over the land," he said, "especially Jericho." So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. 2 The king of Jericho was told, "Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land." 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: "Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land." 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. 5 At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don't know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them." 6 (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.)

The fact she is a prostitute, lied to the king and hid the spies.

Joshua 2:8-21 8 Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof 9 and said to them, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. 10 We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. 11When we heard of it, our hearts melted and everyone's courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. 12 Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign 13 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." 14 "Our lives for your lives!" the men assured her. "If you don't tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the LORD gives us the land." 15 So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. 16 Now she had said to them, "Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way." 17 The men said to her, "This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us 18 unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. 19 If anyone goes outside your house into the street, his blood will be on his own head; we will not be responsible. As for anyone who is in the house with you, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him. 20 But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear." 21 "Agreed," she replied. "Let it be as you say." So she sent them away and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

So here we find out she (and all the Canaanites) had heard what God could do and they were all melting in fear. Rahab here decides to side with the side of Good. This melting also fulfils a prophecy:

Exodus 15:15-16 15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away; 16 terror and dread will fall upon them. By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone-- until your people pass by, O LORD, until the people you bought pass by.

Back to Rahab. She keeps her promise, all of Jericho is destroyed and she and her family are saved:

Joshua 6:20-23 20 When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it-- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. 22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her." 23 So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.

Jericho is destroyed and Rahab and her family are saved and left outside the camp of the Israelites. Why? Because she is not an Israelite and cannot be included withem or even get be too near the Ark of the Covenant that is at the centre of the Israelites camp.

And:

Joshua 6:24-25 24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD's house. 25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho-- and she lives among the Israelites to this day.

So Rahab has been spared (along with her family) and now lives with the Israelites. So what happened and why was she saved? Now to the New Testament:

Hebrews 11:31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

James 2:24-26 24 You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Rahab had faith in the Lord (she knew what he could do) and followed this up with a deed (hid the spies). When she done these she was one of Gods people not against God. Being one of Gods people is not what you are born as but what you do with your Faith. Rahab has been Obedient, faithful and followed up with a deed of faithfulness so she has been saved. She is still left outside the camp as she is still not an Israelite.

It would appear that she later became a proselytess. A righteous proselyte was a Gentile who had converted to Judaism, was bound to all the doctrines and precepts of the Jewish economy, and was considered a full member of the Jewish people. She is than able to marry Salmon a Jew and:

Matthew 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,

This is one of the 1st examples of a Gentile being saved by Faith.

Here endeth this part of the lesson. More later.