Rahab: Peace Among Nations

Hostility: Joshua’s War on Jericho

Since I was able to walk and talk, every year about this time I’ve begun hearing about the “war on Christmas”. Every year, Christians are concerned that society’s growing tendency towards secularism will endanger the true Christmas spirit. This anxiety shows itself as church people get touchy at the mention of “Happy Holidays”, or when the newest holiday movie hits theaters and is not about Jesus the Messiah, but is instead about commercialism, capitalism, or some vague secular concept on “love”, “tolerance”, etc.

Though we may not always recognize it, this anxiety at the holiday season points us towards a deeper hostility between the Church and culture. As I’ve grown older, I’ve watched this hostility and tension grow. Now the tension is so heavy it can be felt in the air. There is a deep fear that certain politicians are secretly out to get Christians, or else that they have simply coopted our faith as a means to get more votes. There is a deep fear that corporations, government services, and businesses are hostile towards us, and that Christian employees, teachers, and even students may be harassed or persecuted based on their faith.

This is the war on Christmas that I hear about every year, and every year the hostility seems to grow just a little bit more. And now, that hostility has even spread out far from just the holidays, and seems to be a year around event.

Joshua was not concerned so much with a war on Christmas, but with the war on Jericho. Since the days of Moses, the Israelites had heard from the Lord that they were to take back the Holy Land, and to push out all of the Canaanites. Like our own culture, they had created a very simplistic black and white divide between friend and foe. The Canaanites were all evil, godless, monsters, hardly capable of being called “human”, and, of course, the Israelites were God’s people, righteous and faithful. This hostility is, afterall, somewhat justified. The Canaanites really did worship other gods, they really did do abominable acts of violence, and perverted deeds. And God, afterall, really had said in Deuteronomy, “

The New Revised Standard Version Rules of Warfare

But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17 You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the LORD your God has commanded, 18 so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God.

Rahab’s Unworthiness

Which brings us to the second woman in Jesus’s genealogy, Rahab. As the Israelites approached their first major battle in their crusade into the Holy Land, Joshua, Moses’s successor, thought it would be wise to send out spies first. So, after sneaking into the city, these spies meet exactly the kind of person an Israelite might expect to meet in this unholy place: a Canaanite prostitute.

Rahab was everything wrong with the world in Israel’s eyes: She was a woman: who had no social status and little worth, she was a prostitute: immoral, adulterous, and a seductress; and she was a Canaanite: the unholy sworn enemy of Israel. In fact, even her name was promiscuous and unclean, as “Rahab” in Hebrew means “wide open”.

The Israelites’ Unworthiness

So it would be very easy for us to assume that Rahab was exactly the kind of evil person God had sent the Israelites out to destroy. And yet, if we read a little closely and ask the right questions, Joshua seems to be pointing out that these Israelite men were no better than Rahab!

As I’m sure all of us remember, in the book of Numbers the Israelites had a very important experience in the land of Shittim. There the Israelite men began having inappropriate relationships with women from Moab. These women, Numbers tells us, lead the Israelites astray to worship other gods, particularly the god Baal of Peor. As a result, Moses was instructed to cleanse the camp of any men who had been with these women and had begun worshipping this false god.

And so, in Joshua, once again the Israelites find themselves camped out in Shittim. And, believe it or not, the first place they go is to a prostitute’s house! The Hebrew is pretty clear what happens there too, as it says they “entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and bedded down there.” “Bedded down” by the way, implies more than just lying down and having a good rest.

What makes all of this worse is the fact that these men, who were “bedding down” with Rahab, knew what was about to happen to her. They did all of this with a woman that they were about to kill! They did all of this with a supposed “enemy of God” who they had been ordered to destroy! The cruelty of this is nearly unimaginable. And yet, these are the so-called “people of God”.

The New Revised Standard Version Rules of Warfare

But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17 You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the LORD your God has commanded

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), .

Finding God in Unexpected Places

In telling the story this way, Joshua seriously challenges our black and white view of the world. Whereas people tend to want to draw clean lines between sinners and saints, Joshua would challenge such a simplistic worldview. Rahab was a prostitute, yes, but unlike the Israelite men, she likely had little say in the matter. Much as it is today, prostitutes then often resorted to such things as a last resort. Prostitution was for people who had no other way to provide for themselves, or else for those who had been sold into debt-slavery. The Israelites men, however, had full control over their actions, and thus were left with little excuse.

Even more surprising, however, is that it is out of the this woman’s mouth, the one the Israelites would call a sinner, unclean, unholy, degenerate, the scum of the earth, it was out of her mouth that we hear the most theologically profound statement in the whole book of Joshua, and from this woman that we see an act of faithfulness and righteousness, in contrast to the unrighteousness of these Israelite spies.

For, when the spies arrived at Rahab’s house, the King of Jericho’s men went looking for them. And at great risk to herself, Rahab the Canaanite prostitute hid them and kept them safe. What’s more than that, she put these men to shame by her profession of faith:

The New Revised Standard Version Spies Sent to Jericho

Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof 9 and said to the men: “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. 10 For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11 As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The LORD your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.

In fact, this is the same report the spies would give to Joshua when they returned form Jericho:

The New Revised Standard Version Spies Sent to Jericho

They crossed over, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that had happened to them. 24 They said to Joshua, “Truly the LORD has given all the land into our hands; moreover all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.”

They crossed over, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that had happened to them. 24 They said to Joshua, “Truly the LORD has given all the land into our hands; moreover all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.”

Rahab not only gives the most profound profession of faith in the whole book, she is also the one who delivers God’s good news to the Israelite people: “God has given you this land.” The people who we overlook or reject are often the means by which God speaks to us. Yes, God often speaks in unexpected ways from unexpected places. After all, who would have expected God’s word to be spoken through a carpenter from Bethlehem? What good comes out of Nazareth?

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), .

God’s Boundless Love

This story has even more to tell us, however. Because after Rahab delivers God’s word to the Israelite people, she asks them to spare her and her family from the coming destruction of Jericho. This, of course, creates some serious problems for the Israelites. After all, hadn’t God told them through Moses in Deuteronomy:

The New Revised Standard Version Rules of Warfare

But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17 You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the LORD your God has commanded

Yet, it would seem these Israelite spies had little choice. They were, after all, hidden on Rahab’s roof, and at her mercy. As if a teenage boy had slipped into his girlfriends room through the window. Her dad comes marching up the stairs, and the boy has to hide under the bed. All the girl has to do is let it slip that he’s there, and Dad will tear him a new one! All Rahab has to do is alert the guards, and these men are toast! So, of course, they have to agree to her terms.

But

So did the spies simply, once again, disobey God’s will by sparing Rahab? Not at all! In fact, the story itself portrays Rahab’s salvation as a whole new passover. She is instructed to tie a red cord to her window, so that when the Israelites pass by, they’ll now not to enter into her home. And it was out of Rahab’s mouth, after all, that the book of Joshua first reminds of the passover event:

The New Revised Standard Version Spies Sent to Jericho

For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt

And, just before the Israelites bring down Jericho and save Rahab’s household, they celebrate the passover feast. All of this points towards God’s saving hand in Rahab’s story. God provided a new passover for Rahab’s household, a Canaanite household, just as he had done for the Israelites. And after Rahab was spared, Joshua tells us:

The New Revised Standard Version Jericho Taken and Destroyed

Her family has lived in Israel ever since. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

In fact, Rahab is spoken of very positively throughout the rest of scripture. She not only appears in Jesus’ genealogy, but is praised for her faith in , and is an example one justified by their good works in .

So what are we to do with Rahab? On the one hand, God set aside the Canaanites for destruction. This very notion might be troubling and concerning for us. And yet, God leaves room for Rahab. This story in Joshua challenges the kind of black and white, sinners and saints divide we might expect after reading Deuteronomy. Rahab’s story seems to warn us that we cannot divide the world into neat moral “us versus them” categories.

And by placing the greatest confession of faith on Rahab’s lips, Joshua shows to us that God is open to the faithful responses of the Canaanites. So, whatever we might take away from the troubling stories of the Canaanite conquest in the Old Testament, Joshua challenges any simplistic view of “us versus them”, “the good people vs the bad people”, and any view that disregards one such as Rahab.

Rahab’s story shows us that God’s love reaches beyond the boundaries of Israel, and that He is willing to accept even a Canaanite prostitute’s profession of faith.

Anticipating the Prince of Peace

This story, of course, points us towards Jesus, who also came not just for the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. This story points us towards the Prince of Peace, who invites all who share in Rahab’s profession of faith to become children of the Living God. Rahab shows us that God does not, in fact, judge the world based on tribes, clans, ethnicities, denominations, political affiliations, or national identities, but solely on the blood of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, who came into a family with people such as Rahab. Prostitutes, Canaanites, thieves, and sinners. In that family, violence, war, and hostility do not win. Grace wins. Grace not only for the “clean” people like the Israelites, but even for the “unclean”, like Rahab.

Despite

Christ came to bring peace on earth, to heal the divides that separate people from one another, and to bring us all together in the family of God, to be brothers and sisters. As we anticipate the coming of the Prince of Peace, let us look to our enemies and find a way to call them “brother” or “sister”. And let our ears be opened even to the Canaanites, the Perezites, the Hittites, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Muslims, and the Atheists, and never be surprised to hear God’s voice even there. Because God is at work in all places, working to bring about peace, working to draw outsiders into the family of God.

[and]

B- Rahab’s unworthiness

[but/comparison]

C- The Israelites’ unworthiness

[and]

D- Finding God in Unexpected Places

[and]

E- God’s Boundless Love

[therefore]

F- Anticipating the Prince of Peace