Rahab and the Battle of Jericho

Joshua 2:1-24

Rahab is not a biblical villain. Not even close. She is so revered among bible characters that she ends up in the lineage of Jesus.  But, Rahab is certainly complicated. Because she isn't your typical person to get put into the lineage of Jesus. Usually those scribes and priests who are writing down biblical texts on papyrus would want the lineage of Jesus to be as pure and messiah-like as possible.  But, they put Rahab in it.  Rahab, who in this account of Joshaua, is called a harlot, a prositute.

Now those are not always the sorts of characters you want to associate with your King, your Messiah. So why Rahab?  Her story, first of all, is a story of a Savior. She saves some Israelite spies who have come to town to see how big the army is in Jericho.  She is a Canaanite, but saves these foreign spies.
In that same scene, she asks for them, in return, to save her family when the Israelites invade the city. So she saves foreign spies and she saves her family from the massacre that the foreign invasion will bring.

Secondly, she is strong and brave.  Some historians believe she is an innkeeper rather than a prostitute, because the scripture indicates the men came there to stay, which indicates that the place she lives and works is perhaps is a bar with rooms to stay.  There's probably room in this theory to assume she was both.  An innkeeper, the barkeep who also rents out rooms with or without a 'lady of the evening' for hire as well.  But she is strong and brave enough to think that she can not only hide these men successfully from the authorities, but also bargain with them to save her own skin and her family.  Not many women in that day and time would have been strong enough to take such risks.

So, even though her occupation is looked upon with eyebrows raised, she is a beloved figure in Jesus' lineage.  Someone to look up to and admire. Someone who took a set of circumstances that might have brought her only reproach and turned them into assets that bring her honor.

She also was willing to embrace the other. And she immediately, even if it is just to protect her family, calls out for protection from the one God of Israel, rather than any Canaanite god.  Maybe it is just a savvy way of being saved, but she assimilates well. The Israelites who came to overtake, she later is able to assimilate with, and even marry. She is listed in the Jesus lineage as being the wife of Salmon, who was believed to be one of the soldier spies she protected. This ends up making her the mother of Boaz, who marries that faithful woman of the bible, Ruth... which leads eventually to David. So she ends up in a royal lineage in the end.

Rahab is a complicated savior. Someone you would not have considered as a candidate for such as this. What sorts of unlikely saviors do we have around us today? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org  or comment below.