Lives of Scripture

Rahab ran an inn built into Jericho's wall when two Israelite spies came to her seeking shelter (Joshua 2:1). She hid them from the king's men, telling a direct lie about their whereabouts, then confessed to the spies that she and her city already knew Israel's God had given them the land -- "the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath" (2:9-11). In exchange for her protection, the spies swore to spare her and her family when Jericho fell, sealed by a scarlet cord tied in her window (2:12-21). When the walls collapsed, Rahab's household alone was preserved and brought into Israel (Joshua 6:22-25). Scripture does not erase what she was -- she is repeatedly called "Rahab the harlot" even in the New Testament (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25) -- yet both James and Hebrews hold her up as an example of faith proven by action, and she is named outright in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus, an ancestor of David and of Christ (Matthew 1:5). Her story is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of grace reaching across every boundary of nationality and reputation: a pagan woman with no claim on Israel's covenant is grafted permanently into it by faith alone.