A special woman with a unique faith, Rahab from Jericho.
Hebrews 11 is sometimes known as the gallery of faith heroes, those who are known for their outstanding faith. The only woman mentioned in the chapter on her own merits is Rahab the Amorite. (Sarah is named alongside Abraham)
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched round them for seven days.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
Rahab appears just before Israel crossed over the Jordan to step into their inheritance and conquer Canaan – a crucial time in the history of God’s people. She hid the two spies on the roof of her house and mislead the king and his men.
4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, ‘Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. 5 At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.’ 6 (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) Joshua 2
Rahab told the men, ‘I know that the Lord has given this land to you 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’. Joshua 2:9
Rahab wasn’t a religious woman but she recognised the hand of the Hebrew God in all of this and proceeded to bargain with them for her and her family’s lives. (She didn’t just think of herself alone)
12 ‘Now then, please SWEAR TO ME BY THE LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. (She reaped what she’d sown, we all do sooner or later!) Give me a sure sign 13 that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them – and that you will save us from death.’
14 ‘Our lives for your lives!’ the men assured her. Joshua 2
Rahab and her family alone, were saved out of Jericho, because of her faith.
Rahab is mentioned three times in the New Testament. Right at the beginning of the New Covenant,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of King David. Matthew 1
Once again very few women make it into the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, but two of them are foreigners, Rahab, mother of Boaz and Ruth, mother of Obed. Both were grafted in to David and the Messiah’s line and both demonstrated their hearts by their actions.
We can only become children of God through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, but He looks at our lives to see how we’re living out the new life.
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? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. James 2
God accepted Rahab and Ruth, two gentiles, because they showed true faith by laying down their lives.
God bless and keep you today.