Joshua 2King James Version
Joshua sends two spies into Jericho. They lodge at the house of a woman named Rahab. The king's men come looking for them. Rahab hides them on the roof under stalks of flax and sends the pursuers the wrong way. She asks the spies to remember her kindness and save her family when the city falls. They tell her to hang a scarlet cord from her window.
Joshua sends two spies into Jericho. A prostitute named Rahab hides them, deceives the king's soldiers, and confesses that Canaan's cities already fear Israel. She secures a promise of protection for her family in exchange for hanging a scarlet cord from her window. The spies return with a report of demoralized enemies.
The conquest begins not with a battle but with a conversation: a Canaanite woman chooses the God of Israel before a single Israelite soldier crosses the Jordan.
verse 11: "And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath." Rahab's confession of faith is more explicit than most Israelites manage in this book.
Jericho in 1406 BC is a heavily fortified city-state perched at one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites on earth, fed by a strong spring. Its walls are massive mud-brick construction, the gate tightly controlled. Rahab's house is built into the city wall itself, her window overlooking the descending cliffs toward the Jordan plain. The spies slip out at dusk by rope, dropping into the darkness outside the walls with the smell of flax and the sound of the river below.
Joshua, directing the operation from Shittim; the two unnamed spies who carry out a dangerous reconnaissance; Rahab, a Canaanite innkeeper and prostitute whose courage and theological clarity will earn her a place in Israel's genealogy; the king of Jericho, whose soldiers come close but miss.
Rahab is the first Canaanite convert in the conquest narrative and one of the Bible's most striking portraits of faith from an outsider. Her reasoning is empirical: she has heard what God did at the Red Sea and in the wilderness, and she draws the only rational conclusion. The scarlet cord foreshadows Passover blood on doorposts. Rahab will appear in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus.
There is a quiet tension in the rooftop scene, spies lying flat under stalks of flax while soldiers pound on the door below. Rahab's calm under pressure is more striking than any military maneuver in the chapter.
1And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there.
2And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country.
3And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country.
4And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were:
5And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them.
6But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.
7And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate.
8And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof;
9And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
10For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.
11And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
12Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father's house, and give me a true token:
13And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.
14And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business. And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee.
15Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall.
16And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye go your way.
17And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine oath which thou hast made us swear.
18Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father's household, home unto thee.
19And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him.
20And if thou utter this our business, then we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us to swear.
21And she said, According unto your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they departed: and she bound the scarlet line in the window.
22And they went, and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days, until the pursuers were returned: and the pursuers sought them throughout all the way, but found them not.
23So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all things that befell them:
24And they said unto Joshua, Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.