Joshua 2:1- Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
Joshua 6:17- The city and all that is in it are to be devoted[a] to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
Joshua 6:22-25 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, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. 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.
Hebrews 11:31-By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
James 2:25- 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?
What do you notice about every Scripture that I just read? Rahab’s name was used in conjunction with her lifestyle. It seems the writers of each Scripture want to drill it in our heads that Rahab was a prostitute. It’s a little overkill, don’t you think? You think one mention would be enough, maybe the Old Testament mentions would be adequate, but to continually bring up who she was seems a bit much. Why the consistent emphasis on her profession as a prostitute?
There is one other place in Scripture that mentions Rahab’s name. It is the only reference to Rahab that doesn’t also reference her sin. It is the mention she gets in the lineage of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. She is the second woman to have her name inserted into the line-up. We read in Matthew 1: This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, 4 Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
A prostitute was included in the ancestry of Jesus? Wouldn’t you think the Gospel writer would have tried to keep her story “hush-hush?” When her name was read it would be associated with her profession immediately. Everyone knew what Rahab did for a living. If Jesus was going to have credibility with the Jewish people as the Messiah, wouldn’t you want to doctor up the family tree? Like Tamar, the very inclusion of Rahab in this list of Jesus’ ancestors, contains messages for each of us about why Jesus came and what He can do to and for those who will turn to Him.
Her story is in Joshua chapter 2. As the scene begins, Moses has died, and Joshua is leading the Israelite nation toward the Promised Land. It is a land whose inhabitants have been judged by God to be evil. The Israelites are going to take the land through a series of conquests. The first city to be tackled is Jericho. Joshua sent two spies into the city to survey the situation. They snuck in and strategically got to a home in the “red light” district. It is the home of Rahab the prostitute. Scripture doesn’t include a hint of impropriety, so we know they are there just to find shelter and information. I’m guessing they thought it was a great place to hide since strange men were always coming and going there.
Well, the King of Jericho caught wind that some of the Israelites had entered the city to spy things out. They weren’t very stealthy because it was quickly known that they had entered Rahab’s house. Instead of giving them up, she lied about their whereabouts. So, we now know Rahab is a prostitute and a liar. She said that the two men had come to her place, but at some point, they left, and she claimed she didn’t know which way they had gone. She urged the king’s men to hurry to try to catch them, and so, taking her at her word, they rush off.
Meanwhile, the two Israelite spies were snug as a bug in a rug under some stalks of flax on her roof. They were going to spend the night. When the coast was clear, she went up on the roof to talk to them. This is what she had to say:
Joshua 2:9-11: “I know that the Lord has given you this land 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[a] 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.[b] 11 When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.
Rahab didn’t just fear something; she had come to believe something. She had come to believe that God was at work in the lives of the Jewish nation. She had come to believe they were His special people, and that He was working in a personal way with them, something she had never experienced in worship of Baal and other false gods. In verse 11 she acknowledged the Hebrew God as the God in heaven above and on the earth below. And she said in verse 9 that she KNEW God was giving them the land. She believed the Hebrew God fought for His children.
She was not only a believer in the God of Israel, but she became an informant to the spies. She was making their job easy! No doubt, her profession gave her inside information to a lot of the happenings in Jericho. She told them how the inhabitants of Jericho were already terrified at the thought of an invasion. The Israelites had their enemy right where they wanted them before they ever began their Jericho march.
Rahab asked for their protection in exchange for hers. She would keep them overnight and give them the information they needed to formulate a plan and in exchange, she wanted confirmation that she and her family would be spared when the invasion took place. The two spies agreed.
Well, her house was part of the city wall, and she let them down by a rope through the window. It made for a quick getaway. She told them which way they should go in order to avoid being detected. She advised them to head for the hills and to lay low there for three days until their pursuers gave up looking for them and came back to Jericho. She must have known some inside scoop about how security worked in Jericho. After three days, she told them they would be safe to head back to the Israelite camp.
The two spies gave her some instruction in return. They said that they would not be obligated to spare her and her family unless she took a scarlet cord, they had with them and tied it on the window, the same window through which she let them down. The scarlet cord would be the sign to the Jewish invaders not to touch that home. The scarlet cord would distinguish that family from every other family in Jericho. During an invasion, the bright red cord would be easy to see. Every person in her family needed to be inside that home, however, to be safe. She agreed to put the scarlet cord in her window.
As I re-read the story, the Holy Spirit said to me, “This is the second Passover in the Old Testament.” The first Passover occurred for the Jewish nation when God brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They were told to put the blood of a lamb, scarlet red blood, on the doorposts of their home, as a sign for the death angel who was coming to kill the firstborn in Egypt, to signify to the death angel that their homes, the Jewish homes, should be “passed over” and kept safe from the plague God was sending on the Egyptians. That was a Passover for the Jewish people.
The scarlet symbol in this story would become a “Passover” or “protective covering” for the Gentile, Canaanite, Prostitute, and her family. It’s beautiful to see that even in the Old Testament, God was reaching to all people, Jews and Gentiles, to bring them in to His redemption story. His grace was on display to bring in those who would turn to Him in faith.
The way of salvation that was offered included a scarlet cord. Rahab agreed to the way out that had been offered, and because she did, she and her family were spared. Y’all know, the way for our Passover, the way for our Protection, the way for our liberation from judgment and condemnation, has been offered. The scarlet threat, the blood, shows up again as Jesus, the sinless Son of God, shed His blood on Calvary’s cross. The blood of Christ distinguishes us. It shows that God has redeemed us and that we have accepted the way of salvation that has been offered.
Well, the story played out just as the spies and Rahab agreed it would. The city of Jericho was completely destroyed. Everyone in the city except Rahab and her family were destroyed. Rahab married an Israelite from the Tribe of Judah. They had a son named Boaz. He became the husband of Ruth. Boaz and Ruth had Jesse. Jesse became the father of David. Jesus descended from the house and line of David. Wow!
Rahab stands as a shining example of what faith in God can do. She was raised in a pagan nation. She was steeped in the religious culture that offered no hope. She was part of a culture so evil God had to bring judgment against it. She had developed a business based on lewd and sinful practices. If anyone could simply claim to be a “product of their environment” she could. And yet, she recognized the truth when she was confronted with it, and she turned to belief in God.
Y’all, Rahab went from Harlot to Heroine, from Prostitute to Proselyte. That is a pretty big transformation! We don’t know the dynamics of the family she was part of. I don’t know where they all lived, how scattered they were, who was mad at who or how long it had been since any of them last spoken, but we know that somehow, Rahab compelled them all to get to her place and stay there. Like Noah who gathered his family on board that ark of safety where all would be safe from the coming destruction, Rahab got her people inside. Because of her faith, her family was going to be safe. Don’t underestimate the power of one person’s faith. Her family was going to be brought in by God through her courageous and faith-filled efforts.
I’m going to give you a couple of takeaways from this amazing story.
Rahab demonstrated her faith. Because she believed what she had heard about God, without ever seeing that Red Sea miracle for herself, without personally seeing the ways God had provided for His people in the wilderness for herself, but trusting what she had heard, she acted in faith. Yes, she was trying to avoid being destroyed, but doing what she did could have ended in destruction for her as well. If it became known that she was hiding and informing the Hebrew spies, her life could have been taken by those in charge in Jericho. The possibility of death loomed either way. She chose, however, to believe that the God who delivered the Hebrews from slavery could deliver her, and so she put action to her faith.
This is why Rahab makes the Hall of Faith chapter in Hebrews 11. What she did, she did by faith. God commended her for it. He rescued her because of it. The demonstration of faith pleases God. (Hebrews 11:6) How can you demonstrate your faith this Christmas season? How can you show others where you have placed your faith? How can you act on what you believe about the Messiah’s coming into the world?
Rahab declared her deliverance. When she hung that scarlet cord in the window, she was making a statement. She was confessing that her house and her family were going to be kept safe during impending doom. She was declaring that promises that were made were promises that would be kept. She was living NOT for the moment of destruction, but for the moment of deliverance. She had made up her mind that she would be saved.
I wonder if the people who passed by Rahab’s house wondered what was up with the scarlet cord. Maybe they thought it was a new decoration or some symbol of a new service she was offering through her “business.” Do you think as they walked by, they asked each other, “What’s up with the scarlet cord?” It had to draw attention. It had to create questions among the townspeople. Those communities were small and tight. It wouldn’t go unnoticed. I don’t know how Rahab handled any questions that were raised to her.
It didn’t matter what people thought. The cord was there as a declaration that she had believed what the spies had promised to her. It was there as a sign that she was counting on them to make good on their promise. It was there as a statement to the attackers that she was being marked safe. She didn’t care if it raised suspicion. She didn’t care if people criticized her décor or speculate about her life. She was determined to make herself available to the way that had been spelled out.
I also believe the cord served to reassure her. As she saw it, as she passed by it, as she looked out the window, she would say to herself, “I will be safe. Deliverance is coming. I have a way out. A way has been made for me. The scarlet cord is visible to those coming after Jericho, so I am good to go.”
Listen, if you have applied the blood of the Lamb, if the scarlet cord of Jesus’ blood has been hung over your sin to cover your sin, you have a spiritual right to dwell in peace and safety. You can declare it in faith. You plead the blood of Jesus over your life and your family. It may not be popular to talk about the blood. It may raise suspicion about just how far out you are with this Jesus’ stuff, but I’m telling you the blood of Jesus is the symbol of the promise God has made to keep you safe and to deliver you from death into eternal life in Heaven. It is your safety, it still holds power for you today, and it will cover you in any circumstance. Declare your deliverance through the blood of Jesus!
Rahab determined to help others to safety. She gathered her relatives. You know when she went to them and told them that they needed to get to her house asap she had to give them the details. They were going to have lots of questions. No one was moving into the brothel just because it seemed like a fun idea to have a family reunion. She had to explain to them all that had transpired. She had to convince them of her belief in the one, true living God. She had to tell them that she was switching sides, that she was forsaking the pagan gods that had been worshiped in Jericho, and that she was seeking a whole new way of life. She had to explain the reason for the scarlet cord. And listen, they had to believe her in order to follow through with her request to get under her roof. She had to be quite a convincing, evangelist. She had to passionately plead with them to get them to join her.
How concerned are you for those who haven’t been marked safe by the blood of Jesus? When was the last time you prayed for the salvation of your loved ones? If Jesus came back today to end things as we know them, does it pain you to think about the people you know that would go to Hell for eternity? Who have you passionately talked to about Jesus? With whom have you shared how Jesus, the Messiah, has changed your life and your eternal destiny? How passionate are you to make sure that other people escape the judgment that is coming to those who have rejected the way to salvation?
Demonstrate your faith. Declare your deliverance. Determine to see others saved.
Rahab was a prostitute. If someone asks you what you learned in church today, I want you to tell them that. God wanted to make sure we knew what she was. That is why the Bible reiterates it so many times. So, tell them Rahab was a prostitute, but don’t stop there. Tell them Rahab was a prostitute who landed a spot in the Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11 because when a female, Canaanite, prostitute can wind up in God’s Hall of Fame of Faith she is proof that with God all things are possible.
That is why we need to know what she was…because her identity says a whole lot about the grace of God. Your story is bigger than you! Your story is bigger than your sin! God wants to redeem your story because God wants you to be part of HIStory!
Matthew wasn’t ashamed to list her in the genealogy because he was in awe of what God did for her and subsequently did through her. These are more incredible Christmas messages from the mess of a person who made the strategic decision to turn to God in faith.
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