The Berean Table

Field	Detail
Pericope	Joshua 2:1–24
Theme	The LORD saves a Canaanite prostitute through faith in His word, sheltering her household under a scarlet sign in a city marked for judgment.

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Opening Prayer

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Closing Prayer

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Timeline Context

Place in the Book. Joshua 2 stands between the LORD’s commission of Joshua (1:1–18) and the crossing of the Jordan (3:1–4:24). Chapter 1 ends with the people pledging obedience; chapter 3 opens with the camp moving from Shittim to the river. Chapter 2 is therefore a hinge: before Israel sets foot in Canaan, the reader is taken inside the first city to see what the LORD has already been doing there. The chronology is compressed. Joshua told the people they would cross “within three days” (1:11), and the spies hide three days in the hills (2:22) before returning; several commentators (Calvin in his Latin rendering, Poole, Gill, and the Pulpit Commentary) therefore read verse 1 as a pluperfect, had sent, placing the mission before or alongside the orders of chapter 1. The narrative is arranged by theme rather than strict sequence, and verses 4 and 6 likewise look back in time.

Historical Setting. Israel is encamped at Shittim (Numbers 25:1), called Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab across from Jericho (Numbers 33:49). The name recalls the camp where Israel had joined itself to Baal of Peor and a generation fell under judgment (Numbers 25:1–9). The season is spring: the Jordan is in flood at harvest time (3:15), the crossing falls on the tenth day of the first month (4:19), and Rahab has flax stalks laid out on her roof to dry, which fits the early spring flax harvest (cf. Exodus 9:31). Dating the conquest is disputed. On the figure of 480 years in 1 Kings 6:1, an early date around 1406 BC follows, which Keil holds; many modern scholars prefer a thirteenth-century date. Canaan at this time was a patchwork of fortified city-states, each under its own king (v. 2; cf. 12:9–24), a picture consistent with the Amarna correspondence of the fourteenth century BC. Jericho, an oasis city of palms (Deuteronomy 34:3), guarded the passes from the Jordan valley into the central hill country. Its archaeology is debated (Garstang, Kenyon, and Wood reached different conclusions about its walls and dating), and a study of this chapter should not rest its confidence on any one excavation.

Surrounding Events. Behind this chapter stand three memories that Rahab herself names. Forty years earlier the LORD dried up the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21–29). Within the past months Israel had defeated Sihon and Og east of the Jordan (Numbers 21:21–35; Deuteronomy 2:26–3:11). And forty years earlier twelve spies had gone into this same land from Kadesh; ten brought back a report that melted Israel’s heart, and a whole generation died in the wilderness (Numbers 13:25–14:38). Joshua was one of the two faithful spies of that mission. Now he sends two men, secretly, and they return with the opposite report: it is Canaan’s heart that has melted (2:24). Ahead lie the crossing of the Jordan (chs. 3–4), the renewal of circumcision and Passover (ch. 5), and the fall of Jericho, in which Rahab and her household are brought out alive (6:17, 22–25).

Redemptive-Historical Placement. The LORD had promised this land to Abraham and his offspring (Genesis 15:18–21), and had told him the judgment of the land would wait because “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). That iniquity is now full, and the conquest is the execution of a long-deferred sentence. Yet in the very first city under that sentence, the LORD saves a Canaanite who believes. The promise that in Abraham “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3) is glimpsed at the threshold of the conquest, and Rahab’s name will stand in the genealogy of David and of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5). Judgment and mercy meet at Jericho’s wall, as they meet finally at the cross.

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Historical-Grammatical Study

Genre. Joshua 2 is historical narrative within the Former Prophets. It is theological history: the narrator selects, arranges, and paces events to show what the LORD is doing. Dialogue carries the chapter. The king speaks once (v. 3), Rahab speaks at length (vv. 4–5, 9–13, 16) and assents briefly (v. 21), the spies answer (vv. 14, 17–20), and the chapter closes with their report (v. 24). Rahab’s speech of verses 9–13 is the longest and stands at the center of the chapter, framed by two scenes of concealment and escape. The narrator offers no explicit verdict on her falsehood, and commentators across the tradition note that silence; the verdict on her faith comes later, from Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25.

Key Hebrew Terms.

• The Hebrew cheresh (H2791), translated “secretly” (v. 1), carries the ideas of silence and cunning. Keil notes that the accents join it to saying, so that Joshua gave the instructions privately, which implies the mission itself was concealed, perhaps so that no discouraging report could spread through the camp as it had in Numbers 13.
• The Hebrew zonah, the participle of zanah (H2181), means a prostitute. Josephus, the Targum, and some rabbis softened it to innkeeper; Calvin, Keil, Barnes, and the Pulpit Commentary reject that evasion, and the New Testament settles it with the Greek pornē (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25).
• Her name, Rachab (H7343), is related to the adjective rachab (H7342), broad or wide. It must not be confused with the different Hebrew Rahab (H7294), the poetic name for Egypt and the sea monster (Psalm 87:4; Isaiah 51:9).
• Two verbs for melting frame the chapter. The Hebrew mug (H4127) describes the inhabitants who “melt away” (v. 9), as again in verse 24, echoing the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:15); the Hebrew masas (H4549) describes hearts that “melted” (v. 11). The same image had described Israel’s cowardice at Kadesh (Deuteronomy 1:28).
• The Hebrew ruach (H7307) in verse 11 means spirit or courage: no breath of resolve remained in anyone.
• The Hebrew chesed (H2617), covenant kindness or loyal love, appears on both sides of the bargain (vv. 12, 14). Rahab asks for a sign of ʼemeth (H571), truth or faithfulness, and the spies promise to act with chesed and ʼemeth together (v. 14), the pair that describes the LORD Himself (Exodus 34:6).
• Verse 15 uses chebel (H2256), an ordinary rope, for the line by which the men descend; verse 18 uses tiqvah (H8615) for the scarlet cord. Strong’s gives tiqvah the literal sense cord and the figurative sense hope or expectation; the same word stands in the promise of “a door of hope” (Hosea 2:15). The text does not draw the link itself, so it should be offered as a resonance rather than a proof. Keil takes the cord of verse 18 to be the rope of verse 15.
• The Hebrew shani (H8144), scarlet or crimson, is the dye used in the cleansing rites of Leviticus 14:4 and Numbers 19:6.
• The Hebrew charam (H2763) in verse 10, devoted to destruction, shows that Rahab knows the fate of Sihon and Og was a sacred ban, not ordinary war.

Grammar and Syntax. Verse 6 begins with the subject before the verb (and she had brought them up), a Hebrew way of stepping back in time, and most commentators give verse 4 the same pluperfect sense from context: the woman had taken the men and hidden them on the roof before the king’s messengers arrived. Keil and Gill both note that verse 4 literally reads and hid him, the singular suggesting she hid each man separately. The oath formula of verse 14 is literally our life in place of you to die, using nephesh (H5315): the spies stake their own lives on hers. The perfect “you let us down” (v. 18) has led some (Poole, the Pulpit Commentary) to discuss whether the conversation of verses 17–20 happened before or after the descent; the narrator’s order is thematic, and the dispute does not affect the meaning.

Ancient Near Eastern Background. Houses built into or against a city’s defensive wall, with windows opening outward, are known from ancient fortified towns; Barnes suggests the town wall formed the back wall of Rahab’s house, which explains how she “lived in the wall” (v. 15). Flat roofs served for drying crops and for sleeping in warm weather (Deuteronomy 22:8; 1 Samuel 9:25–26). City gates were shut at dark (v. 5). An oath sworn by a deity with a conditional self-curse was the ordinary way to bind a treaty, and the spies’ formula follows that pattern. Hospitality to strangers carried heavy obligation throughout the ancient Near East, and the king’s demand to “Bring out the men” (v. 3) recalls the men of Sodom pressing at Lot’s door (Genesis 19:5), another city ripe for judgment from which a household was rescued.

Covenantal Themes. The chapter is framed by the land-gift formula of the covenant: Rahab begins “I know that the LORD has given you the land” (v. 9), and the spies end “Truly the LORD has given all the land into our hands” (v. 24). Between those two confessions a Canaanite woman is drawn under the covenant promise by an oath sworn “by the LORD” (v. 12). Her household is included with her, as Israel’s households were included under the blood at Passover (Exodus 12:22), and her rescue is an early fulfillment of the Abrahamic word that those who bless Abraham’s seed will be blessed (Genesis 12:3).

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Expanded Outline

Section 1 — Sent Secretly to a Prostitute’s House (Joshua 2:1–3)

Key Insight

Faith and means (v. 1a). Joshua has just heard the LORD promise him every place the sole of his foot will tread (1:3), yet his first act is to send two men secretly from Shittim as spies. There is no contradiction. Matthew Henry puts it plainly: “Faith in God’s promise ought not to supersede but encourage our diligence in the use of proper means” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 2:1). A promise from God does not make human planning irreverent; it makes planning hopeful. Joshua does not send spies to reopen the question whether to enter the land, as the report from Kadesh did for his fathers (Numbers 14:1–4), but to learn how to enter it, especially Jericho, the fortress that guarded the way in.

A deliberate contrast with Kadesh. Forty years earlier twelve men had gone out at the people’s request, and their report went to the whole congregation and broke its courage (Numbers 13:31–14:4). Now two men go secretly, and they will report to Joshua alone (v. 23). Keil suggests the secrecy served partly so that an unfavorable report would not throw the people into despair, as had happened in Moses’ day. Joshua has learned from the failure of his fathers.

Providence at the door (v. 1b). The spies came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. The Hebrew zonah means exactly that, and attempts to soften it into innkeeper are, as Calvin says, the old habit of making Scripture more respectable than it is. The house suited men who wished to pass unnoticed, and it stood against the wall (v. 15). But the narrator’s interest is not in tactics. Keil writes, “But the Lord so guided the course of the spies, that they found in this sinner the very person who was the most suitable for their purpose” (Keil and Delitzsch, on 2:1). What looked like the spies’ choice was the LORD’s appointment (Proverbs 16:9). Calvin sees the deeper wonder: “we are furnished with a striking display of divine grace which could thus penetrate into a place of shame, and draw forth from it not only Rahab, but her father and the other members of her family” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:1). Grace does not wait for sinners to become respectable before it comes to their door.

The king’s net (vv. 2–3). The mission is discovered at once. “men of Israel have come here tonight” (v. 2), and the king sends to Rahab: “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land” (v. 3). Jericho is watchful and afraid. Calvin observes that at this moment “their life hangs upon the tongue of a woman, just as if it were hanging by a thread” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:2). Before the chapter ends, that thread will become a scarlet cord, and it will be Rahab’s life that hangs on it.

Pointing to Christ. Joshua’s name, Yehoshua (H3091), means the LORD saves, and in Greek it is Iēsous, the name of Jesus (Hebrews 4:8). The first Joshua sends messengers into a city under sentence, and they are received in a house of shame. The greater Joshua came into a world under judgment and was received by tax collectors and prostitutes while the respectable refused Him (Matthew 21:31). Rahab’s name will stand in His genealogy (Matthew 1:5), a permanent witness that He came to call sinners.

Application

Joshua’s example corrects two opposite errors. Some believers treat planning as unbelief, as though trusting God meant refusing to think ahead; others trust their plans and pray as an afterthought. Joshua holds a sure promise and still sends spies. We should pray earnestly and plan carefully, and then hold our plans loosely, knowing that the LORD establishes our steps (Proverbs 16:9). Nehemiah prayed and set a guard (Nehemiah 4:9); the church prays for the lost and also plans how to reach them.

This passage should also change how we see the people around us. God led two Israelites to the one house in Jericho where faith was waking up, and it belonged to a prostitute. We do not know which neighbor, coworker, or relative the LORD is already preparing. The person whose life seems furthest from God may be the one He is drawing near. Paul could write to Corinth, such were some of you, and then: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

In practice this means praying by name for people we have quietly written off, welcoming into our churches those whose pasts are notorious, and refusing to measure anyone’s prospects by their reputation. It also means receiving ordinary circumstances (a chance meeting, an unexpected open door) as places where God may be at work.

A warning against misapplication: this passage does not license believers to enter places of sin on the pretext of ministry, nor does it make sin interesting or glamorous. The spies went on a specific commission for a specific purpose, and the text never suggests they shared in Rahab’s trade. Nor should God led me here become a way of baptizing every choice after the fact; providence is learned from Scripture, not read off our preferences.

Section 2 — Hidden on the Roof: Rahab’s Courage and Her Falsehood (Joshua 2:4–7)

Key Insight

The hiding (vv. 4a, 6). The narrator steps back in time: “But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them” (v. 4). Before the king’s men reached her door, Rahab had already chosen her side. She took the spies to the roof and “hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof” (v. 6). The Hebrew literally says she hid him, and Keil and Gill take it that she concealed each man separately. To shelter enemy agents was treason, and treason meant death. Hebrews names the principle beneath the act: she welcomed the spies “By faith” (Hebrews 11:31).

The deception (vv. 4b–5). To the messengers she says, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from” (v. 4), and then, “I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them” (v. 5). The pursuers hurry toward the fords of the Jordan, and the gate is shut behind them (v. 7). Her words are not true, and the chapter does not pretend they are.

Two questions the tradition has faced. Calvin states them directly: was her treachery to her country excusable, and could her lie be free from fault? On the first, Matthew Henry answers that she knew the LORD had given Israel the land, “and her obligations to God were higher than her obligations to any other” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 2:4). Her break with Jericho was the act of one who had passed from a city under sentence to the people of God (cf. Acts 5:29). On the second, the Reformed commentators are nearly unanimous. Calvin allows no exception even for a lie told to save life: “it never can be lawful to lie, because that cannot be right which is contrary to the nature of God” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:4). Keil likewise refuses to call it a justified lie of necessity, and concludes that “the course which she adopted was a sin of weakness, which was forgiven her in mercy because of her faith” (Keil and Delitzsch, on 2:4). Henry weighs the extraordinary circumstances more gently, but reports that the divines generally judge it a sin, which God pardoned while accepting her faith.

What Scripture commends. The New Testament praises Rahab’s faith and the deed that expressed it: she “received the messengers and sent them out by another way” (James 2:25). It never praises her words. Her act was genuinely good in its root and aim, and genuinely stained in its execution. Calvin explains the result: “the principal action was agreeable to God, because the bad mixed up with the good was not imputed” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:4). That is the gospel in miniature. Every good work of every believer is mixed with sin, and God accepts it only because He does not count the sin against the person who is covered by grace.

Pointing to Christ. Rahab lied to save the messengers. When the soldiers came for Jesus in the garden, He told the truth to save His own: “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go” (John 18:8). He “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22), and His spotless obedience is the covering under which Rahab’s flawed faith, and ours, is accepted.

Application

Rahab’s courage should search us. She risked her life for people she barely knew because she believed their God. Most of us will never hide fugitives on a roof, but we regularly face smaller moments when siding with Christ’s people costs us something: standing with a mocked colleague, defending a persecuted church, refusing to join in contempt. Faith that never costs anything is hard to tell from no faith at all (James 2:17).

At the same time, this passage teaches us to take truthfulness seriously. God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18), and His children are called to put away falsehood and speak the truth with their neighbors (Ephesians 4:25). The pressure to shade the truth usually comes dressed as kindness or prudence: a small exaggeration on a report, a convenient excuse to avoid a conversation, a half-truth told to keep the peace. Rahab’s example does not make those acceptable. Paul flatly rejects the principle “why not do evil that good may come?” (Romans 3:8).

There is also deep comfort here for tender consciences. If God accepted Rahab’s faith while forgiving the sin mixed into her act, He accepts the imperfect obedience of His children in Christ. We need not despair because our best service is stained; we bring it to Him through our Mediator, confessing the sin and trusting the grace.

A crucial warning against misapplication: Rahab must never be cited as a license for lying in a good cause, and her break with Jericho must not be turned into a warrant for disloyalty to lawful authority. Henry notes that her case rested on a direct grant of God that cannot be claimed today. Hard cases of protecting the innocent from murderers exist, and Christians have reasoned about them carefully, but they are settled from the whole counsel of Scripture, not by pointing to Rahab.

Section 3 — Rahab’s Confession: The LORD Your God Is God (Joshua 2:8–11)

Key Insight

Faith that speaks (vv. 8–9). With the pursuers gone, Rahab climbs to the roof “Before the men lay down” (v. 8), and makes the confession that is the heart of the chapter: “I know that the LORD has given you the land” (v. 9). She uses the covenant name, Yehovah (H3068), and she speaks of the gift as already done while Jericho’s walls still stand. Faith counts God’s promise as settled fact (Hebrews 11:1).

The Song of the Sea fulfilled (v. 9b). Her next words, the fear of you has fallen upon us and all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you, repeat the language of Exodus 15, where Israel sang that “all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away” (Exodus 15:15). Keil notes that the connection is deliberate, “to show that what Moses and the Israelites had sung after crossing the Red Sea was now fulfilled” (Keil and Delitzsch, on 2:8). The LORD had promised to send His terror ahead of His people (Exodus 23:27; Deuteronomy 2:25), and a woman of Jericho now testifies that He has kept His word.

Faith by hearing (v. 10). Rahab has seen none of this. “For we have heard” (v. 10) she says, and she names the drying of the Red Sea and the destruction of Sihon and Og, whom Israel devoted to destruction (Hebrew charam, H2763). Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17), and the report of God’s works is enough for faith when God opens the heart.

The confession (v. 11). “And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you” (v. 11). Then comes the turn: “for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (v. 11). These are almost exactly the words Moses urged on Israel: “the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:39). Calvin writes, “Here the image of Rahab’s faith appears, as if reflected in a mirror, when casting down all idols she ascribes the government of heaven and earth to the God of Israel alone” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:11). A Canaanite prostitute confesses the creed that Israel’s own fathers had failed to believe at Kadesh.

Same news, two responses. Everyone in Jericho heard the report; everyone’s heart melted. Only Rahab concluded that she must turn to the God she feared. Barnes observes, “It is noteworthy, too, that the same reports which work faith and conversion in the harlot, cause only terror and astonishment among her countrymen” (Barnes, on 2:11). Matthew Henry names the reason: “the most powerful means of conviction will not of themselves attain the end without divine grace” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 2:8). The difference between Rahab and her neighbors was not information but grace (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Pointing to Christ. Rahab believed a report about a God she had not seen, and Jesus pronounced a blessing on exactly that faith: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). The God she confessed as Lord of heaven and earth has given all authority in heaven and on earth to His Son (Matthew 28:18). Every sinner who is saved is saved as Rahab was, by hearing the report of what God has done and believing it.

Application

This passage shows that hearing about God is not the same as turning to Him. All Jericho knew the facts; all Jericho was afraid; and all Jericho, except one household, stayed behind its walls. Many people today know a great deal about Christianity and even fear its claims, but have never surrendered. James warns that “Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19). The question is not whether I know about God’s works but whether I have bowed before Him.

It also shows the power of testimony. Rahab’s faith was born from reports of God’s deeds carried by travelers and traders. Our own reports of what God has done in Christ, and in us, are part of how He calls people to Himself (Psalm 145:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:9). Believers should speak freely and specifically of God’s works: telling a friend how Christ met them in grief, explaining the gospel plainly to a curious neighbor, or recounting God’s faithfulness to children at the table.

Finally, Rahab humbles insiders. As Henry notes, she spoke of God’s promise with greater assurance than many Israelites who had seen the wonders with their own eyes. Those raised in the church can grow dull to what outsiders hear with awe, and should pray for fresh wonder at works they have known since childhood.

A warning against misapplication: the terror of the Canaanites is not a model for evangelism by fear alone. Fear drove Jericho to shut its gates, not to repent. We should warn of judgment, as Scripture does, but the goal is to lead people to the God who saves, as Rahab turned from terror to faith and to the mercy she asked for in the next verse.

Section 4 — Kindness for Kindness: The Plea and the Oath (Joshua 2:12–14)

Key Insight

An oath by the LORD (v. 12a). Rahab’s faith now becomes a request: “Now then, please swear to me by the LORD” (v. 12). She does not ask the spies to swear by the gods of Jericho or by their own honor, but by the covenant name of Israel’s God. Poole sees in this an act of worship: “so she shows her conversion to God, and owns his worship, one eminent act whereof is swearing by his name” (Poole, on 2:12). The woman who has confessed the LORD as God of heaven and earth now commits her life to His name.

Covenant kindness (v. 12b). Her appeal rests on chesed (H2617): “as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house” (v. 12). Chesed is the steadfast, loyal love that binds covenant partners, the word Scripture uses for the LORD’s own faithfulness to His people (Exodus 34:6–7). She asks for a sure sign, literally a sign of truth (ʼemeth, H571), something that will guarantee their word when the city falls. Keil takes the sign to be the solemn oath itself, which the spies give in verse 14.

A household plea (v. 13). She asks them to “save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death” (v. 13). She does not ask for reward, wealth, or position, only life, and she asks it for her family before herself. Matthew Henry calls this “a laudable instance of natural affection, and an intimation to us in like manner to do all we can for the salvation of the souls of those that are dear to us” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 2:12). Faith that has found refuge wants others gathered in.

Our life for yours (v. 14). The spies answer with a self-curse: “Our life for yours even to death!” (v. 14). The Hebrew is literally our soul (nephesh, H5315) in your place to die. They bind themselves before God to bear the penalty if Rahab’s household perishes through their failure. Calvin writes, “They constitute themselves, therefore, a kind of expiatory victims, if any evil befalls Rahab through their negligence” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:14). They add one condition, if you do not tell this business of ours, and a promise that echoes her own words: “then when the LORD gives us the land we will deal kindly and faithfully with you” (v. 14). Chesed and ʼemeth, kindness and faithfulness, are the very attributes the LORD proclaimed at Sinai (Exodus 34:6). What the spies promise, they promise as servants of that God.

Pointing to Christ. The spies pledged their lives for Rahab’s conditionally, and never had to pay. The Lord Jesus pledged His life for His people and paid in full: He came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The oath of verse 14 is a shadow; the cross is the substance, where our life for yours even to death was spoken by the only One who could make it good. And the chesed and ʼemeth promised to Rahab came to their fullness in the Word made flesh, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Application

Rahab’s plea should stir our prayers for our families. The moment she found hope, she thought of her father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Paul’s heart’s desire and prayer to God for his kinsmen was “that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). Believers should pray by name for unconverted relatives, speak to them of Christ with patience, and keep the door of the home open as a place where they can see grace at work.

This passage also calls us to keep our word as those who swear before God. The spies’ oath bound them, and they kept it (6:22–23). The righteous person “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4). Our promises in marriage, church membership, business, and friendship are made in the presence of the God of truth. Examples include finishing a commitment that has become inconvenient, honoring a contract when a better offer appears, and following through on a promise made to a child.

Finally, Rahab’s request is a lesson in bold asking. She was a condemned Canaanite, yet she asked for mercy by the LORD’s own name. Sinners may come to God asking for life, not because they deserve it, but because He has revealed Himself as abounding in steadfast love.

A warning against misapplication: Rahab’s kindness to the spies did not purchase her salvation, and our kindness does not earn God’s favor. Her deeds were the fruit of faith, not its price. Nor does her plea mean families are saved automatically by one member’s faith; each of her relatives still had to come inside the house (vv. 18–19).

Section 5 — The Scarlet Cord in the Window (Joshua 2:15–21)

Key Insight

Down the wall (vv. 15–16). “Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall” (v. 15). The wall that made Jericho feel safe was the very thing that let the spies escape, and the house built into it would become the one refuge in the city. Paul would later escape Damascus the same way, “let down in a basket through a window in the wall” (2 Corinthians 11:33). Rahab then gives practical counsel: hide in the hills for three days until the search is called off (v. 16).

The terms of the oath (vv. 17–20). The spies set out three conditions, as Keil observes. First, “you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down” (v. 18). Second, she must gather her father, mother, brothers, and all her father’s household into her house (v. 18), and anyone who goes out into the street bears his own blood (v. 19). Third, she must not tell their business (v. 20). In the chaos of judgment the sign must be unmistakable. The word for cord here is tiqvah (H8615), which elsewhere means hope; the prophet would later promise to make the Valley of Achor, where Achan was judged (7:26), “a door of hope” (Hosea 2:15). The link is a resonance rather than an argument, but it is a fitting one: Rahab’s hope literally hung in her window.

A Passover in Jericho. The echoes of Exodus 12 are strong. There a sign of blood marked the houses of Israel (Exodus 12:13), the household was gathered inside, and “None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning” (Exodus 12:22). Here a scarlet sign marks one house, the household gathers inside, and whoever goes out into the street perishes. Matthew Henry writes, “This was like the blood sprinkled upon the door-post, which secured the first-born from the destroying angel” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 2:18). The tradition of reading the cord as a figure of Christ’s blood is ancient; Barnes notes that the Fathers from Clement of Rome onward saw in it “an emblem of salvation by the Blood of Christ; a salvation common alike to Christ’s messengers and to those whom they visit” (Barnes, on 2:18). Keil, more restrained, notes that the color of vigorous life made it a fit sign of life preserved. Either way, safety lay not in the thread but in the sworn word that the thread signified.

Obedient faith (v. 21). Rahab answers, “According to your words, so be it” (v. 21), and the chapter records simply: “And she tied the scarlet cord in the window” (v. 21). Spurgeon comments, “To tie the scarlet line in the window was a very trivial act in itself, but she dared not run the risk of omitting it” (Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, April 18). Faith takes God at His word and does exactly what He says.

Pointing to Christ. The house with the scarlet sign pictures the refuge God provides in His Son. Those inside were safe, not because of their own righteousness, but because of a promise sealed by oath; those outside perished. Christ is the door, and whoever enters by Him will be saved (John 10:9). Believers once far off “have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13), and they are kept not by the strength of their own walls but by “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19).

Application

The scarlet cord calls us to live inside the house of refuge. Rahab’s relatives were safe only as long as they stayed where the sign was. The New Testament calls believers to “abide in him” (1 John 2:28), to remain in Christ through His Word, prayer, the sacraments, and the fellowship of His people. Drifting into the street, whether through neglect of worship, prolonged isolation from the church, or flirting with the world, is spiritually perilous. The same household that gathers for safety also gathers for worship: parents who bring their children under the preaching of the Word are doing what Rahab did when she brought her family under her roof.

It also calls for visible faith. The cord hung in a window, not in a closet. Jesus promises to acknowledge before His Father “everyone who acknowledges me before men” (Matthew 10:32). A believer’s hope in Christ’s blood should be visible in public profession, honest business dealings, gracious speech, and willingness to be known as a Christian at work and among neighbors.

And it calls for obedience in small things. Rahab did not debate whether a thread really mattered; she tied it. Christian faithfulness is largely made of small, repeated acts of obedience: keeping the Lord’s Day, bringing children to worship, praying with a spouse, confessing a sin quickly. None of these seems dramatic, but each is a thread tied in the window, a small act that says we believe God’s word.

A warning against misapplication: the cord had no power in itself, and neither do religious objects or rites considered apart from God’s promise. Rahab was saved by the oath the cord signified and by the faith that took hold of it. Likewise we must not allegorize every detail of the chapter (the flax, the hills, the three days) into hidden doctrines; sound reading follows the patterns Scripture itself establishes, here the Passover.

Section 6 — The Report: The LORD Has Given All the Land (Joshua 2:22–24)

Key Insight

Kept in the hills (v. 22). The spies follow Rahab’s counsel exactly. They “went into the hills and remained there three days until the pursuers returned, and the pursuers searched all along the way and found nothing” (v. 22). Keil identifies the likely refuge as the ridge beside Jericho later called Quarantania, a wall of rock full of caves. The search was thorough, and it failed. The God who guided the spies into Jericho now hides them outside it, and the woman’s advice becomes the means of His protection.

The return (v. 23). “Then the two men returned. They came down from the hills and passed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they told him all that had happened to them” (v. 23). They report to Joshua alone, not to the assembly. Gill notes that the Canaanites’ state of mind “seems to be what Joshua was chiefly desirous of knowing; since nothing else is told by the spies nor inquired of by him” (Gill, on 2:24). The mission was never mainly about walls and gates; it was about whether the LORD had gone before His people.

The report (v. 24). Their summary is a confession: “Truly the LORD has given all the land into our hands. And also, all the inhabitants of the land melt away because of us” (v. 24). These are Rahab’s own words returned to Israel (v. 9). The testimony of a Canaanite woman has become the encouragement of the covenant people. Forty years earlier, spies came back from the same land saying, “we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (Numbers 13:33). Matthew Henry draws the contrast: these men could have dwelt on the height of Jericho’s walls and their own narrow escape, “but they were of another spirit, and, depending themselves upon the divine promise, they animated Joshua likewise” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 2:22). They share the different spirit that the LORD had commended in Caleb (Numbers 14:24).

God confirms His promise. Joshua already had the word of God (1:1–9). Why did he need this report? Calvin answers with pastoral tenderness: “the Lord is so very indulgent to their weakness, that, for the sake of removing all doubt, he confirms what he had promised by experience” (Calvin, Commentary on Joshua, on 2:24). God does not despise weak faith; He strengthens it with evidence of His faithfulness. The promise of 1:3 is now confirmed by what the spies have seen and heard.

Pointing to Christ. The spies returned from enemy territory with the news that the enemy was already beaten. When Jesus’ messengers returned from their mission rejoicing, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” (Luke 10:17), He answered, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). The land was given before Israel crossed the Jordan; the victory over sin, death, and the devil was won at the cross before the church took one step into the world. The risen Christ sends His people out on that basis: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). Our mission is not to win a doubtful war but to take possession of what He has already secured.

Application

The contrast between these two spies and the ten at Kadesh should shape how we speak. What we report about our church, our families, or the state of the world shapes the courage of those who listen. The ten spoke facts without faith and melted a nation’s heart; the two spoke facts through faith and strengthened their leader. Believers should not deny difficulties, but they should interpret them in the light of God’s promise. That might mean answering a discouraged friend’s bleak account of the culture with the reminder that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4), or telling a struggling church about the ways God is already at work.

We should also receive God’s confirmations with gratitude. Answered prayers, a word of Scripture that meets us in need, the testimony of another believer, the sacraments that seal His promises to our senses (Romans 4:11): these are God’s kindness to weak faith. Keep a record of His faithfulness and rehearse it when fear rises.

Finally, the report reminds us that the enemies of God’s people are weaker than they appear. The walls of Jericho still stood when the spies returned, but the hearts behind them had already melted.

A warning against misapplication: the assurance that the LORD has given all the land did not mean there would be no battles, losses, or sins to face, as Ai and Achan will soon show (ch. 7). Confidence in God’s promise must never become presumption, and it must never be transferred to modern nations, parties, or causes as though God had pledged them victory.

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Cross References

Comparative Gospel Study

Not Applicable as Direct Comparison — Joshua is Old Testament historical narrative, not Gospel narrative. However, Joshua 2:1–24 anticipates key Gospel themes:

• Grace that seeks notorious sinners. The LORD led His messengers to a prostitute’s house, and Jesus was known as the friend of sinners who told the chief priests, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matthew 21:31). Matthew writes Rahab into the genealogy of the Messiah (Matthew 1:5), alongside Tamar, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, so that the Gospel opens by announcing a Savior whose own family tree proclaims mercy.

• Great faith outside Israel. Rahab’s confession outstripped the faith of many Israelites, just as the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15 persisted until Jesus said, “O woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 15:28), and the Roman centurion drew His amazement (Matthew 8:10). In both Testaments the LORD delights to find faith where no one expected it, a pledge that the gospel will go to all nations.

• Messengers sent ahead. Joshua sent two men ahead of the army, and the Lord Jesus “appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go” (Luke 10:1). In both cases the messengers found that the enemy was already giving way before the coming of the true leader (Luke 10:17–18).

• Salvation coming to a house. Rahab asked for her father’s household and gathered them under one roof. When Jesus entered the house of Zacchaeus, a despised collaborator, He declared, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9). Rahab, too, became a daughter of Abraham by faith (Galatians 3:7).

• A life pledged for another under a sign of blood. The spies swore our life for yours even to death and marked the house with scarlet, recalling the Passover. At the Last Supper Jesus took the cup and spoke of “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28), the true Passover sign under which every believing household is kept.

Old Testament Connections

Pentateuch

• The promise that in Abraham “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3) is glimpsed as a Canaanite family is spared.
• The delay of judgment because “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16) explains why the conquest comes now and why it is judicial rather than ethnic.
• The rescue of Lot’s household from Sodom, where the men of the city also demanded that the guests be brought out (Genesis 19:4–16), is the nearest earlier pattern of a family saved from a doomed city.
• The Passover supplies the pattern of a marked house and a household gathered within (Exodus 12:13, 22–23).
• The Song of the Sea predicted the melting of Canaan (Exodus 15:14–16), and the LORD promised to send His terror ahead of Israel (Exodus 23:27; Deuteronomy 2:25; 11:25).
• The failed mission of the twelve spies (Numbers 13–14; Deuteronomy 1:19–40) is the backdrop against which this mission succeeds.
• Rahab’s confession echoes Moses’ creed: “the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:39).
• The ban on covenants with Canaan (Deuteronomy 7:1–5; 20:16–18) frames the question of how Rahab could be spared.

Historical Books

• The oath is honored when Jericho falls, and Rahab and her family are brought out alive (6:17, 22–25); “she has lived in Israel to this day” (6:25).
• The Gibeonites (ch. 9) are the contrasting case of Canaanites spared through deception rather than confessed faith.
• Ruth, another foreign woman who took refuge under the LORD’s wings, married Boaz, whom Matthew names as Rahab’s son (Ruth 2:12; 4:13–22; Matthew 1:5).
• Close narrative parallels appear when Michal lets David down through a window to escape Saul’s men (1 Samuel 19:11–17), and when a woman at Bahurim hides David’s messengers in a well and sends the pursuers the wrong way (2 Samuel 17:17–21).

Wisdom Literature

• The LORD directs the steps that human beings plan (Proverbs 16:9), as He guided the spies to Rahab’s door.
• “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22), the standard by which Rahab’s falsehood is judged and her faithfulness commended.
• The one who dwells with God keeps an oath “to his own hurt” (Psalm 15:4), as the spies and Joshua kept theirs.
• Psalm 87:4 names Rahab among the nations who will know the LORD, but there the Hebrew is a different word, a poetic name for Egypt; the psalm’s vision of nations enrolled in Zion is nonetheless the larger hope of which Rahab of Jericho is a firstfruit.

Major Prophets

• Isaiah promises that foreigners who join themselves to the LORD will not be cut off from His people (Isaiah 56:3–7), which Rahab embodies.
• The LORD invites sinners whose sins are like scarlet to be made white as snow (Isaiah 1:18), a fitting echo of the scarlet sign.
• Isaiah’s summons, “Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by” (Isaiah 26:20), matches the posture of Rahab’s household waiting behind the marked window.

Minor Prophets

• Hosea promises to make the Valley of Achor “a door of hope” (Hosea 2:15), using the same word, tiqvah, that names Rahab’s cord.
• Joel’s promise that “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Joel 2:32) describes Rahab, who called on the LORD’s name when she asked the spies to swear by Him.
• Zechariah foresees men from the nations taking hold of a Jew’s robe because they have heard that God is with Israel (Zechariah 8:23), the same movement from hearing to joining that Rahab made.

New Testament Fulfillment

Gospels and Acts

• Rahab appears in the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah as the mother of Boaz (Matthew 1:5).
• Jesus declares that repentant prostitutes enter the kingdom ahead of the self-righteous (Matthew 21:31–32).
• Salvation comes to whole households through faith (Luke 19:9; Acts 16:31), echoing Rahab’s plea for her family.
• Peter learns that “in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:35).
• Paul escapes Damascus by being let down through the wall in a basket (Acts 9:25), a providential deliverance like the spies’.

Paul’s Epistles

• Faith comes from hearing the word (Romans 10:17), as Rahab’s faith came from what she had heard.
• Gentiles once having no hope and without God in the world have “been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).
• Those of faith are the true children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7–9), whatever their birth.
• Former sinners of every kind are washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ (1 Corinthians 6:9–11).
• The principle of doing evil that good may come is condemned (Romans 3:8), which shapes how Rahab’s lie is judged.
• Believers are to put away falsehood and speak the truth (Ephesians 4:25).

General Epistles and Revelation

• “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies” (Hebrews 11:31).
• “And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” (James 2:25).
• Believers are redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19), the reality the scarlet sign foreshadowed.
• Those who once were not a people are now God’s people (1 Peter 2:10).
• The Lamb has ransomed people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9), the final gathering of which Rahab’s household was an early sign.

Redemptive-Historical Context

Creation. The LORD whom Rahab confessed is “God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (v. 11), the Creator who made all nations from one man and determined the boundaries of their dwelling (Acts 17:26). The land of Canaan was His to give, and He had marked it out for Abraham’s seed (Genesis 15:18–21). The whole conquest rests on the Creator’s right over His world (Psalm 24:1).

Fall. Jericho is a picture of humanity after the fall: fortified, fearful, and unrepentant. Its people knew enough to tremble (vv. 9–11) but not enough to seek mercy. Their long-tolerated iniquity had come to fullness (Genesis 15:16), and the city stood under sentence. Rahab herself belonged to that fallen world, not only as a Canaanite but as a woman whose way of life was itself a mark of the corruption the land was judged for (Leviticus 18:24–28).

Redemption. In the middle of that judgment God acts in grace. He sends messengers, guides them to a sinner’s door, awakens faith by the report of His works, and binds Himself by oath to spare her and her household under a scarlet sign. The pattern is the Passover renewed at the gates of the promised land, and it points beyond itself to the Lamb of God whose blood marks the true house of refuge (1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:18–19). Rahab’s entrance into Israel and into the line of David and of Christ (Matthew 1:5) shows that the covenant of grace was never limited by blood or birth; it was always for all who believe (Galatians 3:7–9). She is an early firstfruit of the promise that in Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3).

Consummation. Jericho’s fall anticipates the final judgment, when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven and every stronghold raised against God will come down (2 Thessalonians 1:7–10; Revelation 18:2). Only those sheltered in Christ will stand. The gathering of Rahab’s family foreshadows the great multitude “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9) standing before the throne, and the land given to Israel foreshadows the new heavens and new earth that the meek will inherit (Matthew 5:5; Hebrews 11:13–16).

Already and not yet. The spies declared the land already given (v. 24) while Jericho’s walls still stood. The church lives in the same tension. Christ has already triumphed over the powers (Colossians 2:15) and been given all authority (Matthew 28:18); the victory is certain. Yet the church still sends messengers into hostile territory, still suffers opposition, and still waits for the walls of this age to fall. Like Rahab, believers live with their hope tied in the window, trusting a sworn promise while judgment has not yet come.

The new covenant. The oath the spies swore was sealed by their own lives pledged conditionally. The new covenant is sealed by the blood of Christ poured out unconditionally for His people (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 9:15). What the scarlet cord signified, the cross accomplished, and what Rahab received in shadow, believers now receive in substance.

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Systematic Theology Connection

The Providence of God

Joshua 2 is a study in providence working through ordinary means. No miracle occurs in the chapter, yet God’s hand is everywhere: He guides two spies to the one house in Jericho where faith has been awakened (v. 1), He turns the king’s search into a chase to the fords (v. 7), He preserves the spies in the hills while the pursuers search “all along the way” (v. 22), and He has already struck the hearts of Canaan with dread (vv. 9, 11, 24). The Confession teaches that God “doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence” (WCF 5.1). The chapter shows exactly that range, from the fate of nations to the flax on a roof.

Providence also governs the hearts of men. Calvin cites this chapter when he argues that God directs even the courage and fear of armies: “Even the harlot Rahab recognised the hand of the Lord” (Calvin, Institutes, 2.4.6). The terror that fell on Canaan was not mere military psychology; it was the LORD keeping His promise to send His terror before His people (Exodus 23:27; Deuteronomy 2:25).

Providence uses means without depending on them: “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure” (WCF 5.3). Joshua’s spies, Rahab’s rope, and her advice about the hills are means God employs, not substitutes for His promise. And providence takes special care of the church: “so, after a most special manner, it taketh care of his church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof” (WCF 5.7).

Practically, this doctrine frees believers from both anxiety and fatalism. We plan and act, as Joshua did, knowing that our plans succeed only as God establishes our steps (Proverbs 16:9). We can trust Him in hostile places, because the hearts of kings and the secrets of cities lie open before Him (Proverbs 21:1; Romans 8:28).

Effectual Calling and Election

All Jericho heard the same report, but only Rahab turned to the LORD (vv. 9–11). That difference is the doctrine of effectual calling displayed in narrative. The Confession teaches that God effectually calls His elect “by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ” (WCF 10.1), and that this call “is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man” (WCF 10.2).

Rahab brought nothing to her calling. Calvin uses her as a test case against the notion that the elect carry a seed of goodness before conversion: “Was there any germ of righteousness in Rahab the harlot before she believed?” (Calvin, Institutes, 3.24.11). His answer is no; God found her in her sin and called her out of it. In his commentary he adds that her surrender to God’s power was itself evidence of her election, the seed of a faith that grew to maturity.

The Shorter Catechism describes effectual calling as the Spirit’s work “whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel” (WSC 31). Rahab’s confession shows the enlightened mind (the LORD your God, he is God), her request shows the renewed will, and her tied cord shows a heart persuaded to rest on the promise.

The outward report was the same for all; the inward call was given to her. This humbles every believer, since grace alone made the difference (1 Corinthians 4:7), and it encourages every evangelist, since no one is beyond God’s reach. It also warns hearers that knowing the facts of God’s works, as Jericho did, is not the same as being called by them (Hebrews 4:2).

Justification by Faith Alone

Rahab stands in both of the New Testament’s great chapters on faith and works. Hebrews says she was saved “By faith” (Hebrews 11:31); James asks whether she was not “justified by works” (James 2:25). The Reformed answer, grounded in the whole of Scripture, is that she was justified before God by faith alone, and that her works demonstrated the reality of that faith.

The Confession states that God justifies sinners “not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone” (WCF 11.1), and that “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love” (WCF 11.2). Rahab’s faith was not alone; it hid the spies and tied the cord.

John Owen explains how James uses her example. Rahab already believed before the spies came, since Hebrews says she received them by faith, and so was already justified; her courageous deed then displayed that faith. He concludes, “Hereby did she justify the sincerity of her faith and confession” (Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, ch. 20). James addresses the question of what kind of faith justifies; Paul addresses the question of what faith rests on. They do not contradict.

The Confession also insists that “The justification of believers under the old testament was, in all these respects, one and the same with the justification of believers under the new testament” (WCF 11.6). Rahab was not saved by a different gospel. She rested on the LORD’s promise, which pointed to Christ, as believers now rest on Christ revealed.

This doctrine comforts sinners with notorious pasts: the ground of acceptance is Christ’s righteousness, not their record. And it searches professing believers: a faith that never acts, never risks, and never obeys is not the faith that justifies (James 2:26).

Saving Faith

Rahab’s words and actions form a small anatomy of saving faith. Her faith rested on report (v. 10), assented to truth about God (v. 11), laid hold of a promise (vv. 12–14), and obeyed a command (v. 21). The Confession describes faith in exactly these terms: “By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word … yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come” (WCF 14.2). Rahab trembled at the threatening that hung over Jericho and embraced the promise sworn to her.

The Heidelberg Catechism defines true faith as “not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 21). The inhabitants of Jericho had knowledge; Rahab had knowledge and confidence. That is the difference between the faith of demons (James 2:19) and saving faith.

The Confession also teaches that faith “is different in degrees, weak or strong” (WCF 14.3). Rahab’s faith was young and untaught, and commentators debate how fully she understood the God she confessed. Yet it was true faith, and it laid hold of the true God. The Shorter Catechism defines faith as the grace “whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel” (WSC 86). Rahab received and rested on the LORD as He was offered to her, under the sign He appointed.

Pastorally, this doctrine encourages weak believers: the strength of faith varies, but the object of faith saves. It also calls us to test our faith. Does it rest on what God has said? Does it trust His promise when circumstances contradict it, as Rahab trusted while Jericho’s walls still stood? Does it obey in small matters, like the tying of a thread? Faith that does these things, however feeble, is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

Good Works and Their Acceptance in Christ

Rahab’s rescue of the spies was a good work: Scripture commends it (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25). Yet it was accomplished with a lie. How can God accept a work so mixed? The Reformed doctrine of good works answers with precision.

First, good works flow from faith: they “are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith” (WCF 16.2). Rahab’s hiding of the spies was exactly that, a fruit and evidence of her new trust in the LORD.

Second, even the best works of believers are imperfect: “as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment” (WCF 16.5). Rahab’s work shows that mixture with unusual clarity. Her courage and faith were genuine; her falsehood was sin.

Third, God accepts these imperfect works because He first accepts the person in Christ: “Notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections” (WCF 16.6). This is the best explanation of how Scripture can commend Rahab without commending her lie. Calvin reached the same conclusion: the principal action pleased God, and the evil mixed with it was not imputed.

This doctrine has two edges. It forbids us to excuse sin because our motive was good, for God did not approve the falsehood; He pardoned it. And it forbids despair over the imperfection of our service. The parent who prays with mixed motives, the believer whose witness is clumsy, the worker whose diligence is tainted with pride, may all bring their service to the Father through the Son, confident that He looks on it in His Son and accepts what is sincere. Our assurance rests not on the purity of our works but on the perfection of Christ (Philippians 3:9).

The Law of God and the Duty of Truthfulness

Rahab’s falsehood (vv. 4–5) raises the ninth commandment directly. The Shorter Catechism teaches that it “requireth the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man” (WSC 77), and the Larger Catechism lists among the sins it forbids “speaking untruth, lying, slandering” (WLC 145). The duty flows from the character of God, who cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18), and who calls His people to put away falsehood (Ephesians 4:25).

The commentators on this chapter judge her words by that standard. Calvin grounds the judgment in God’s nature: nothing contrary to the God of truth can be right, even when the purpose is to save a life (see Section 2). Keil calls her course a sin of weakness forgiven because of her faith, and Poole and Gill agree.

Reformed ethicists have, however, disagreed about the hardest cases. Charles Hodge argued that culpable falsehood involves the violation of an obligation, so that some deception of criminals falls outside the prohibition: “if a mother sees a murderer in pursuit of her child, she has a perfect right to mislead him by any means in her power, because the general obligation to speak the truth is merged or lost, for the time being, in the higher obligation” (Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, on the Ninth Commandment). Hodge does not discuss Rahab there, and he bounds his principle tightly; of a man threatened by a robber he writes that “he had better let his money go” (Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, on the Ninth Commandment). The disagreement should be stated honestly rather than hidden.

What all agree on matters more than the disputed margin. Lying for convenience, self-protection, flattery, or advantage is sin, and the daily pressures most Christians face (to exaggerate, to evade, to cover a mistake) have nothing to do with murderers at the door. Truthfulness in those ordinary moments is where the ninth commandment is mostly kept or broken (Proverbs 12:22). Where we have sinned with the tongue, the remedy is not self-justification but confession and the cleansing that is in Christ (1 John 1:9).

Lawful Oaths and Vows

At Rahab’s request the spies swore “by the LORD” (v. 12), bound themselves with a conditional self-curse (v. 14), and defined the terms with care (vv. 17–20). Israel kept the oath when Jericho fell (6:22–25). The chapter is a small case study in the Reformed doctrine of oaths.

The Confession teaches that “A lawful oath is a part of religious worship, wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly calleth God to witness what he asserteth, or promiseth, and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he sweareth” (WCF 22.1). Rahab’s request that they swear by the LORD, not by any other name, reflects the principle that “The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear” (WCF 22.2). Poole saw in her request an act of worship and evidence of her conversion.

The spies’ care in setting conditions matches the Confession’s counsel: “Whosoever taketh an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act … neither may any man bind himself by oath to anything but what is good and just, and what he believeth so to be, and what he is able and resolved to perform” (WCF 22.3).

Most striking is the Confession’s statement that an oath binds even when it costs: “It cannot oblige to sin; but in anything not sinful, being taken, it binds to performance, although to a man’s own hurt. Nor is it to be violated, although made to heretics, or infidels” (WCF 22.4). The spies’ oath was made to a Canaanite, and Israel kept it; the later oath to the Gibeonites, made to Canaanites under deception, was kept as well (Joshua 9:19–20), and Saul’s breach of it brought judgment (2 Samuel 21:1–2).

Practically, Christians should make promises soberly and keep them faithfully, in marriage, church membership, business, and friendship. The one who dwells with God “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4). Our reliability reflects the God who swore by Himself to Abraham so that we might have strong encouragement (Hebrews 6:13–18).

The Covenant of Grace and the Church Gathered from the Nations

Rahab’s rescue shows that the covenant of grace was never a matter of ethnicity. The Confession describes that covenant as the arrangement “wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved” (WCF 7.3). Rahab was a Canaanite under the ban, yet through faith in the LORD she was brought into Israel (6:25) and into the royal line of David and of Christ (Matthew 1:5).

The Confession also teaches that the one covenant was administered differently before and after Christ. Under the law it was administered “by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come” (WCF 7.5). The scarlet sign on Rahab’s house, patterned on the Passover, belongs to that shadow administration. Under the gospel the covenant goes out “to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles” (WCF 7.6), and Rahab is an early sign of that breadth.

Her household matters as well. She asked for her father’s house and gathered them under the sign (vv. 13, 18). The Reformed understanding of the church includes households: the visible church “consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children” (WCF 25.2). Scripture repeatedly addresses promises to believers and their households (Genesis 17:7; Acts 2:39; 16:31). Salvation is not inherited, for Rahab’s relatives had to come inside the house; but God’s covenant dealings embrace families, and believing parents should bring their children under the means of grace.

Finally, the chapter shows the church as a refuge from judgment. Rahab’s house was the one place in Jericho that stood under promise. The Confession speaks of the visible church as “the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (WCF 25.2). Rahab did not remain a private believer in Jericho; she was brought into Israel. Believers today belong in the gathered church, and the church should welcome outsiders who come in faith, whatever their past.

Christ Foreshadowed: Substitution and the Sign of Blood

The chapter does not name Christ, but it foreshadows His saving work in two ways. First, the spies’ oath, “Our life for yours even to death” (v. 14), expresses the principle of one life pledged for another. Calvin describes them as offering themselves almost as sacrificial substitutes, bound to answer with their own lives for Rahab’s safety. Their pledge was conditional and never exacted; Christ’s was unconditional and paid in full. The Confession teaches that “The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience, and sacrifice of himself, which he, through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father” (WCF 8.5).

Second, the scarlet sign on the house, with the household gathered inside and death outside, reproduces the pattern of the Passover (Exodus 12:13, 22). The New Testament identifies Christ as the Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7) and speaks of believers ransomed “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:19). Many interpreters since the early church have read the cord as a figure of that blood; Keil is more restrained.

The Confession gives the theological basis for reading Old Testament signs this way: “Although the work of redemption was not actually wrought by Christ till after his incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefits thereof were communicated unto the elect, in all ages successively from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices, wherein he was revealed” (WCF 8.6). Rahab was saved by the same Redeemer who saves believers today, though she saw Him only in shadow.

This doctrine calls believers to rest wholly on Christ’s substitution, not on their own walls or works, and to see the whole Old Testament as a witness to Him (Luke 24:27). It also guards against two errors: treating the cord as mere decoration with no connection to Christ, and inventing meanings for every detail of the story. The warrant for seeing Christ here is the pattern Scripture itself establishes, the Passover sign, fulfilled in the Lamb of God.

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Reformed Theology

One covenant, one people. Reformed theology reads Joshua 2 within the single covenant of grace that runs from the promise of Genesis 3:15 through Abraham to Christ. The Westminster Confession insists that there are “not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations” (WCF 7.6). Rahab is therefore not an anomaly in Israel’s national story but an early and vivid display of what that covenant always was: a gracious arrangement in which God saves sinners through faith in His promise. Her incorporation into Israel (6:25) anticipates the New Testament teaching that Gentiles who believe are “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19), and that those of faith are Abraham’s true sons (Galatians 3:7). Israel and the church are not two peoples with two destinies; they are one people of God, in shadow and in substance.

Judgment and grace together. Reformed interpreters take the conquest seriously as divine judgment. Meredith Kline described the conquest as an intrusion of the final judgment into history: in Canaan God momentarily brought forward the ethics of the last day, so that Israel acted as His instrument against a people whose iniquity was full (Genesis 15:16). That framework explains why the ban was lawful then and why it may never be imitated now. It also sharpens the wonder of Rahab’s rescue. In the very place where the last judgment was being previewed, the last mercy was previewed too: a sinner under sentence was spared because she took refuge in the LORD.

Faith, works, and the lie. The Reformed tradition has used Rahab to hold Paul and James together. Owen argued that she already believed, and so was already justified, when she received the spies, and that her deed then vindicated her faith; the Confession summarizes the principle that faith is “the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces” (WCF 11.2). Calvin, Keil, Poole, and Gill all judged her falsehood a sin forgiven, not a virtue commended, an application of the teaching that the good works of believers are accepted in Christ despite their imperfection (WCF 16.6). Spurgeon, preaching on Hebrews 11:31, refused to soften her past at all: “I am persuaded that nothing but a spirit of distaste for free grace would ever have led any commentator to deny her sin” (Spurgeon, Sermon No. 119, Rahab’s Faith).

Typology with discipline. Reformed hermeneutics, shaped by Geerhardus Vos, asks first what a sign meant in its own setting before asking how it points to Christ. The scarlet cord meant, for Rahab, a sworn guarantee of life in a day of judgment, patterned on the Passover. That is why it may rightly be read as a type of Christ’s blood: the pattern is established in Scripture (Exodus 12; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:19), not invented. Spurgeon applied it pastorally: “Tie the scarlet line in your window, for it will not be tied there for you–you must do it with your own hands” (Spurgeon, Sermon No. 3168, The Scarlet Line in the Window).

Confessional echoes. Providence (WCF 5), effectual calling (WCF 10), justification (WCF 11), saving faith (WCF 14), good works (WCF 16), and lawful oaths (WCF 22) are all illustrated in this one chapter. R. C. Sproul often emphasized that the holiness of God makes both His judgments and His mercies intelligible; Joshua 2 shows both at once, the holy God who judges Jericho and the gracious God who spares Rahab.

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Dispensational Theology

The literal-historical reading. Dispensational interpreters, following the literal-grammatical hermeneutic that Charles Ryrie counted among the essentials of the system, read Joshua 2 first as straightforward history: real spies, a real city, a real woman, and a real rescue. They share with Reformed interpreters a high view of the narrative’s reliability and a clear affirmation that Rahab was saved by faith, as Hebrews 11:31 teaches.

Israel’s land and the kingdom program. Where Dispensationalism differs is in how it frames the land. Writers such as John Walvoord and J. Dwight Pentecost treat the land promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:18–21) as an unconditional covenant grant to national Israel whose full boundaries were never occupied under Joshua. The conquest is therefore a real but partial and provisional fulfillment; the complete fulfillment awaits the millennial kingdom, when a restored Israel will possess the whole land under the Messiah. In this reading, the spies’ confession that “the LORD has given all the land into our hands” (v. 24) is a pledge that looks beyond Joshua to a future national restoration (cf. Ezekiel 37:21–25; Amos 9:14–15).

Rahab and the Israel/Church distinction. Classic Dispensationalism, as articulated by Scofield and Ryrie, maintains a sharp distinction between Israel and the church, which it holds began at Pentecost. Rahab is therefore understood not as a member of the church but as a Gentile blessed through Israel in fulfillment of Genesis 12:3. Her story illustrates that God has always saved Gentiles by faith, but it belongs to the dispensation of law and to Israel’s national program, not to the mystery of the church revealed in Ephesians 3:4–6. Progressive Dispensationalists such as Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock see more continuity, treating Gentile blessing within Israel’s story as a genuine anticipation of the multi-ethnic people of God in Christ, while still preserving a future for national Israel.

Typology. Dispensational writers, especially in the tradition of the Scofield Reference Bible, have been generous with typology, and many readily see the scarlet cord as a picture of the blood of Christ and Rahab’s house as a picture of safety in Him. On this point popular Dispensational preaching and Reformed preaching often sound very similar.

Evaluation. A Reformed reader will appreciate the Dispensational commitment to the historical reality of the text, to salvation by grace through faith, and to Christ-centered typology. The main disagreement concerns the land and the people of God. Reformed theology reads the New Testament as expanding the land promise to the whole renewed earth (Romans 4:13; Matthew 5:5; Hebrews 11:13–16) and as incorporating believing Gentiles like Rahab into one people with believing Israel (Ephesians 2:11–22). On that reading, Rahab is not merely a Gentile blessed alongside Israel but a grafted-in member of the one covenant people (Romans 11:17), and her story is a preview of the church rather than an exception to Israel’s program.

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Bibliography

Commentaries

• Barnes, Albert. Notes on the Bible. 1834. Joshua 2.
• Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Book of Joshua. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1854.
• Gill, John. Exposition of the Entire Bible. 1746–63. Joshua 2.
• Henry, Matthew. Commentary on the Whole Bible (Complete). 1706. Joshua 2.
• Henry, Matthew. Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible. Joshua 2.
• Keil, Carl Friedrich, and Franz Delitzsch. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua. 1857–78.
• Poole, Matthew. Commentary on the Holy Bible. 1683–85. Joshua 2.
• Spence, H. D. M., and Joseph S. Exell, eds. The Pulpit Commentary: Joshua. Joshua 2.

Sermons and Devotional Works

• Spurgeon, Charles H. Rahab’s Faith. Sermon No. 119, preached March 1, 1857.
• Spurgeon, Charles H. The Scarlet Line in the Window. Sermon No. 3168, published 1909.
• Spurgeon, Charles H. Morning and Evening. Morning, April 18.

Theological Works

• Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. 2.4.6; 3.24.11.
• Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. Vol. 3, on the Ninth Commandment. 1872–73.
• Owen, John. The Doctrine of Justification by Faith. 1677. Chapter 20.
• Kline, Meredith G. The Structure of Biblical Authority. (Cited for substance: the conquest as an intrusion of final judgment.)
• Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments. (Cited for substance: symbol and type.)
• Sproul, R. C. The Holiness of God. (Cited for substance.)

Confessional Standards

• The Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapters 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 22, 25.
• The Westminster Larger Catechism. Question 145.
• The Westminster Shorter Catechism. Questions 31, 77, 86.
• The Heidelberg Catechism. Question 21.

Dispensational Works (cited for substance)

• Blaising, Craig A., and Darrell L. Bock. Progressive Dispensationalism. Wheaton: Victor, 1993.
• Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958.
• Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism. Chicago: Moody, 1995.
• Scofield, C. I., ed. The Scofield Reference Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1917.
• Walvoord, John F. The Millennial Kingdom. Findlay, OH: Dunham, 1959.

Reference Works

• The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Wheaton: Crossway.
• Strong, James. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance: Hebrew and Greek dictionaries.