She was a lady of the nights, no doubt; a working woman in the lowliest of trades.  Her home in the city wall had long been a source of course tension between the men and women when the husbands dared to cast a side glance it’s way.  Her door swung wide and often; none were turned away.  Her bed, a place for men to forget their wives and worries for a moment, but a place for her to remember her shame and regret always.  Rahab, the harlot of Jericho.

So when two men needed a place to enter, they were permitted without question, but how her heart did tremble within when she realized whom she had just admitted into her home, for they were Israelite spies.  Fear had fallen upon her and all the inhabitants of Jericho; they had heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea when the Israelites came out of Egypt and what became of the two kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan.  Now the Israelites waited, their eyes set toward the pagan city of Jericho.

A thrill mixed with her trembling, for Rahab knew the raging Jordan River and the fortified city walls were no match for the God of the Israelites.  She knew God had given them the land, that He is God in the heavens above and in the earth beneath.  Thinking quickly, she hid the spies beneath the stalks of flax on her roof and tricked the king; perhaps he also was a frequenter in the harlot’s house and thus so easily deceived.

As she helped the spies to escape out of her window, down the wall, and into the cover of the night, a secret pact was made: to save alive her mother, father, brethren, and sisters, to deliver their lives from death.  She’d hang a rope out of her window, scarlet in color, the hue of her profession and sin, to signify that those in her home should be spared when God gave the Israelites the land.  So the spies returned to their leader Joshua with their report: Truly the LORD has delivered all the land into our hands, and the harlot Rahab shall be saved.

Silently observant, Rahab was careful to conceal her delight when she heard that the God of the Israelites had caused the flooding waters of the Jordan to stand in a heap as His people passed through on dry land.  When the gates of the city were closed tight, allowing none to go out and none to come in, amidst the panic and distress of the inhabitants of Jericho, Rahab felt a certain peace, as she quietly dropped the scarlet rope out of her window and gathered her family into her home.  For six long days she waited calmly, reassuring her family and fending off their doubts and fears, as day after day the Israelite men of war and priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant marched once around the city and then returned to their camps, making not a sound except for the blowing of the trumpets and the repetitive pounding of their feet marching in perfect rhythm on the hard earth.  Exhilaration filled her heart when on the seventh day, she noticed small cracks in the walls of the city that she’d not seen before, as the Israelites did not return to their camp, but continued to march- seven times around the city walls.  When they had concluded their seventh trip around the walls, the Israelite army shouted in unison, a blood curdling war cry that in any other circumstances might have scared the life out of her, but in her heart, she knew she and her family were safe.  As the fortified walls of the city toppled and the Israelites took the city, slaying and destroying all therein, the two spies she had hidden on her rooftop returned, leading Rahab and her family across the rubble and to a place of safety just outside of the camp of Israel.  

Laying on the hard earth that night, as putrid smoke filled her nostrils, perhaps she longed to be within and not without the camp of Israel.  But, as she watched the billowing fire of what was once her home city in the distance, I doubt she could fathom that she, Rahab the harlot from Jericho, might soon be grafted into the family of the One True God in such a way as she was. 

Rahab’s legacy extends far beyond welcoming and hiding a couple of Israelite spies.  With God’s grace and mercy at work in her life, she soon became the wife of Salmon, an Israelite in the tribe of Judah, and the mother of one whose kindness would be remembered forever.  Later, her great-great grandson David would become the great king of Israel, a never-ending kingdom because from its lineage would arise Jesus Christ.

Rahab: From a brothel in the ancient city of Jericho, eternally transferred into the family line of the Ancient of Days.

 1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham….5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse,  6 and Jesse begot David the king.…

Matthew 1:1, 5-6