I've read comments about Rahab not being a harlot. Even Matthew Henry made a comment that she was not likely a harlot, but rather a business women such as innkeeper. The Word of God warns us of changing His word. Do not add to it, nor subtract from it! So what's it going to be? Do we believe all of His word, or pick and choose what fits our own narrative? I think we best follow His Word, and lean not on our own understanding.
Story from a Hebrew website - In Reply on Joshua 2 - 2 years ago
Rahab Saves the Spies and Saves Her Family
A Canaanite woman living in Jericho, Rahab is a prostitute who is also a biblical heroine. According to the narrative in Joshua 2, before the conquest of Canaan, Joshua sends two men as spies to see the land. They come to Rahab's house for lodging, information. The king, hearing about the two men, demands that Rahab give them up. Like the midwives in Egypt, Rahab is faced with a "moment of truth." Like them, Rahab defies the ruler and rescues the Israelites. She tells the king's men that the two men have left and that the king's men should chase them. Meanwhile, she has hidden the men under the flax drying on her roof (2:4); the writer uses the unusual word tizpeno, "she hid him" (even though there are two men), perhaps as an allusion to Exod 2:2, where Moses's mother hides her newborn (tizpenehu). Rahab is midwife and mother to Israel in its beginnings in Canaan.
Rahab lets the two men out through her window, which is in the town wall. She requests a return for her act of esed (NJPS, "I have shown loyalty"). She asks that she and her family be spared once the Israelites attack Jericho. The spies give her a crimson thread to hang from her window, with the injunction that she is to gather her family and wait inside her house; as long as they stay indoors, they will be spared. When the Israelites destroy Jericho, as described in Joshua, Rahab and her whole extended family indeed escape doom by waiting inside a house marked with a red thread, just as the Israelites who stayed in houses marked with the blood of the paschal lamb were spared the fate of the Egyptians. They are exempted from the erem, Israel's obligation to destroy all Canaanites (see 6:17), and are brought out of the city to live among the Israelites (6:25). Rahab and her family are a new Israel.
Right,. God never called her a harlot , it was the people, particularly the ones that made fabric, because she was the best ,. An that made others jealous
The Bible is a very honest book , all kinds of human frailty and foolishness can be found in it . It doesn't sugar coat the Truth and neither should we .
A Canaanite woman living in Jericho, Rahab is a prostitute who is also a biblical heroine. According to the narrative in Joshua 2, before the conquest of Canaan, Joshua sends two men as spies to see the land. They come to Rahab's house for lodging, information. The king, hearing about the two men, demands that Rahab give them up. Like the midwives in Egypt, Rahab is faced with a "moment of truth." Like them, Rahab defies the ruler and rescues the Israelites. She tells the king's men that the two men have left and that the king's men should chase them. Meanwhile, she has hidden the men under the flax drying on her roof (2:4); the writer uses the unusual word tizpeno, "she hid him" (even though there are two men), perhaps as an allusion to Exod 2:2, where Moses's mother hides her newborn (tizpenehu). Rahab is midwife and mother to Israel in its beginnings in Canaan.
Rahab lets the two men out through her window, which is in the town wall. She requests a return for her act of esed (NJPS, "I have shown loyalty"). She asks that she and her family be spared once the Israelites attack Jericho. The spies give her a crimson thread to hang from her window, with the injunction that she is to gather her family and wait inside her house; as long as they stay indoors, they will be spared. When the Israelites destroy Jericho, as described in Joshua, Rahab and her whole extended family indeed escape doom by waiting inside a house marked with a red thread, just as the Israelites who stayed in houses marked with the blood of the paschal lamb were spared the fate of the Egyptians. They are exempted from the erem, Israel's obligation to destroy all Canaanites (see 6:17), and are brought out of the city to live among the Israelites (6:25). Rahab and her family are a new Israel.
There is none righteous; not one.
Even when we were dead in our sins and enemies of God, Christ died for us.
We are all in the same "life boat" and the rescuer is the same for all of us.
Joshua 6:25.
Hebrews 11:31.
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