Second Sunday of Advent: Rahab
Joshua 2:1-21
An excerpt from The Women’s Lectionary: Preaching the Women of the Bible Throughout the Year, Ashley M. Wilcox (Westminster John Knox Press, 2021)
Rahab, the Canaanite woman at the center of this story, is the second woman listed in Matthew’s genealogy leading to Jesus (Matt. 1:5). Some have characterized this passage as Rahab outsmarting the spies,1 but really, Rahab outsmarts everyone. First, she outmaneuvers her own king and army. When the king of Jericho sends orders to her to bring out the men (Josh. 2:3), she tells just enough of the truth for it to be believable. Undaunted by the king’s power, she says that the men were there, but she did not bother to learn where they were from, and they left before dark (2:4). Then she gives the king’s men specific instructions on where to pursue them (2:5), making sure the gate shuts behind them (2:7).
Next, Rahab outsmarts the spies. She takes them up to her roof (2:6), where they are both hidden and visible. The flax that Rahab has drying on the roof hides them, but the roof is out in the open and potentially visible to others.2 While she has them there, she negotiates with them for her family’s life (2:12–13). The spies, who must be in a hurry to get away from the city, respond heartily with “Our life for yours!” (2:14). It is only after Rahab has secured their promise that she lowers them down by a rope, and then she gives them similarly specific instructions on which way to go to avoid their pursuers (2:15–16). The spies’ response seems notably cooler once they have climbed down from the roof—repeatedly characterizing their promise as “this oath that you made us swear to you” (2:17, 20). They also add some requirements: that she have all her family in the house (2:18–19) and that she put a crimson cord in the window. Perhaps they regret agreeing to her terms so quickly.
Notably, Rahab does not just secure a promise to save herself. In fact, she mentions her family members specifically: “Spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death” (2:13). She puts her family members and “all who belong to them” before herself. Rahab is not a solitary woman who is estranged from her family: she is close to them and makes sure that they will be spared. For the preacher, there is room in this message to include not just Rahab’s biological family, but also her chosen family.
One could even argue that Rahab outsmarts God. Deuteronomy 7:2 explicitly says that when the Israelites conquer the land, they must “utterly destroy” the people there: “Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.”3 But Rahab finds a way to make a covenant with these Israelite spies, and she is an essential part of their conquest of Jericho. If she had not hidden the spies, they would not have survived to return to Joshua. In addition, when the spies report back to Joshua, the report they give is directly from Rahab (Josh. 2:9, 24).
At the heart of this text, Rahab preaches. She gives what may be the longest prose speech by a woman in the Bible.4 Rahab reminds the spies (and the readers) of what God has done for Israel: drying up the sea when they came out of Egypt and leading them to triumph in battle against other kings (2:10). She tells them that the people of Jericho “melt in fear” before them (2:9) and prophesies that God will give them the land. This foreign woman speaks the word of God to the people of God!
Most of the commentaries about Rahab focus on her profession. The reception history about her has sexualized her as a prostitute and speculated about whether the spies had sex with her. Others have argued that Rahab was not a sex worker but instead translate her occupation in verse 1 as “innkeeper.”5 The flax and the crimson cord also lead to the idea that Rahab worked with textiles.6 Considering all the other things that Rahab does in this text—outwitting armies, protecting her family, and speaking truth about God—it is unfortunate that she has been reduced to “Rahab the prostitute.”
When you have heard the story of Rahab before, what parts of the story did the tellers focus on? What did they leave out?
How can preachers hold the tension between this story and the command to utterly destroy the people of Canaan in Deuteronomy 7:2?
Is Rahab’s profession important? Why or why not?
Harold W. Attridge, Wayne A. Meeks, and Jouette M. Bassler, HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006), 313.
Joel B. Green, ed., CEB Study Bible (Nashville: Common English Bible, 2013), 330 OT.
Amy C. Cottrill, “Joshua,” in Women’s Bible Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 105.
Richard Hess, “Joshua,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible One-Volume Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010), 147.
Priests for Equality, The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 125.
Green, CEB Study Bible, 331 OT.