Who is rahab in the bible

Her faith of this God who worked great wonders was altogether marvelous and singular. It was such a call that made her willing to sacrifice her own nation—an act which would have been otherwise treasonable. The declaration of faith given by this Canaanite woman places her in a unique position among the women of the Bible.

When Rahab hid the spies, put those who sought them on a false trail and helped the spies to escape and melt away into the shadows of night, and lay concealed until they could reach Joshua with their report, she took her life in her own hands.

We cannot but admire her courage and willingness to risk her own neck. Had those spies been discovered hiding in her house, she would have died at the hands of the king of Jericho.

Yet with a calm demeanor, and without the slightest trace of inner agitation, she met the searchers and succeeded in setting them out on a false trail. By her act Rahab was actually betraying her own country, and for such treason certain death would have been hers had she been found out.

To hide spies was a crime punishable with death. Follow me! How gloriously daring was her faith, and how richly rewarded she was for her willingness to sacrifice her life in a cause she knew to be of God! As Rahab offered to shelter the spies and aid them in their escape, she received from them the promise that when they returned to her country, along with Joshua and his army, that she and her family would be spared alive.

While her sin had possibly estranged her from her loved ones, she was concerned about their safety as well as her own. That red token at the window was likewise a signal to the outside world that Rahab believed in the ultimate triumph of Jehovah.

But under the rules of war, Rahab is not to be blamed for her protection of those righteous forces set against the forces of evil. What the Bible commends is not her deception, but the faith which was the mainspring of her conduct. The characteristic feature of the scarlet rope was that it had to be placed outside the window for Joshua and his men to see. Those inside did not see the token of security.

As that scarlet line, because of its color and sign of safety, speaks of the sacrificial work of Christ Hebrews , 22 , the ground of our assurance of salvation is not experience or feelings within, but the token without.

Jericho was the worst of the cities of the Amorites, thus God commanded Joshua to destroy both the city and the inhabitants. By divine decree, it was to be given over to a perpetual desolation.

When Joshua entered the city he set about the execution of the divine command, but respected the promise made to Rahab by the spies. Under the protection of the scarlet line, Rahab and all her kindred were brought out of the house.

The book of Joshua introduces one of the most unusual and thought-provoking heroines of the Old Testament. Rahab, a prostitute of the Canaanite city of Jericho, is known for helping the Israelites defeat the pagan city of Jericho and for her place in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Before proceeding into battle, Joshua sent two spies into Jericho. The king of Jericho heard two Israelite spies were in the city and sent troops to search for them.

Although Jericho was a fortress, the less-fortunate people lived outside of the walls of Jericho. Rahab was known to be a prostitute, and many men visited the tavern. One evening, two strangers came into her establishment.

She was a smart woman and realized that these men were spies. By placing a red cord out her window, Rahab secured her and her family's safety. When the city of Jericho fell, Rahab and her whole family were saved from the agreement of the spies and were included among the Jewish people. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Read the full lineage of Jesus in Matthew 1. Is there anything good we can say about her? She was a woman of faith. Many people are intimidated by Jesus Christ. They align him with a lot of religious paraphernalia-big sanctuaries, stained glass, beautiful choir, pipe organs, formal prayers, and all the rest. To many in the world today, Jesus seems too good to be true.

She extracted a promise from them: when the time came, they and their army would not molest or harm her family in any way. They would give her safe passage, even if they slaughtered everyone else in Jericho. The resourceful Rahab took care of that too.

Her house had small rooms, enough to house a family, built into the otherwise solid mass of the city wall. One of these rooms had a window large enough for a man to pass through, and she with presumably some help from her family let the two men down on a rope through this window to the ground below. She told them to escape into the hills and stay there for three days, by which time the coast would be clear.

Before they left, the two men told her to leave a red cord hanging down from the window through which they had escaped. After a few days they returned to Joshua and told him about their narrow escape, and about their agreement with Rahab. Joshua agreed to her terms. He sprang into action, giving the command to attack Jericho. The story of what happened next is familiar you can read about it here, or the Bible text is further down this page.

After the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, the walls fell down, and the terrible slaughter began. No-one, human or animal, was spared — except Rahab and her family. Joshua had given specific orders regarding her. Houses had flat roofs, often shaded with a thick woven cloth; women used this space as a work and storage area.

And they went, and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there. But she had brought them up to the roof, and hid them with the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof.