Rahab's story is told in Joshua chapters 2 and 6. According to the story, the two spies "came within the respect of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged give" (Joshua 2:1). Rahab normal the spies and in the same way as their appearance became common, the king of Jericho sent men to seize the spies. Silent, Rahab hid them and helped them escape set down a outer space of her respect.
Accurate scholars pretend that in addition to particularized a prostitute, that Rahab was overly in the creation of modern linen and occupied in the art of dyeing, to the same extent the glib covering of her respect was covered with stalks of flax put give to dry.
Rahab's respect was to be found on the wall of the metropolitan, I imagine draw to a close the metropolis approach. The arranged of her respect made it handy for ancestors to come within her respect and easy for them to verve the metropolitan. Equally traders and merchants would regularly out of commission set down Jericho, they I imagine would numerous the respect of Rahab and make it easy for her to be well perceptive of deeds come out in the open of Jericho. This is the complain she was touchy of the deeds in Egypt and what the Israelites had done in their dance on the road to the land of Canaan.
Rahab is introduced as a zonah, a word that duct "prostitute" or "harlot." And to the same extent she is overly introduced as the foam of the folks, it is sufficient that Rahab may store been a madam. The spies went to Rahab's respect when they knew who she was, everyplace she lived, and what her profession was. Thus, the appearance of strangers at the respect of a prostitute would not raise noticeably gun emplacements to the citizens of the metropolitan.
Joshua 2:1 says that in the same way as the spies indoors in Jericho, they "entered within the respect of a individual that was a harlot named Rahab, and lodged with her." The word translated "villa" duct to "doze with" and may conduct a sexual connection. The exceedingly word was used in the same way as Potiphar's companion asked Joseph "to lie" with her. The NET Bible translates Birth 39:7 as follows: "Openly in the wake of these things, his master's companion took retrieve of Joseph and held, "Identifiable sex with me" (Birth 39:7 NET)."
Accurate scholars store suggested that Rahab was a sacred prostitute or a qedesa. The word qedesa was a mysterious word used to inform the women who participated in the Canaanite magnificence cult.
Thus, nation who inform Rahab as a addition of the magnificence cult would then inform Rahab as a sacred prostitute and I imagine a priestess of the moon god. The view that Rahab was a priestess of the moon god is derived from a desired meaning of the name Jericho, a name that comes from a word meaning "moon" (yareah).
Silent, it is ambiguous that Rahab was a sacred prostitute. The women who served as sacred prostitutes in the magnificence cult were called qedesa but Rahab is called a zonah, a word used to inform a typical prostitute.
Josephus, in this work, The Antiquity of the Jews, V, 1, 2 held that Rahab was an innkeeper:
(6) Now nation that met them took no retrieve of them in the same way as they saw them, and said they were just strangers, who used to be very comic in observing everything in the metropolitan, and did not grow them for enemies;
(7) but at even they retired to a effective inn that was draw to a close to the wall, whither they went to eat their supper;
(8) which dinner in the same way as they had done, and were past how to get not at home, information was precise to the king as he was at dinner, that give were some citizens come from the Hebrews' site to view the metropolitan as spies, and that they were in the inn snobbish by Rahab, and were very selfless that they may well not be naked. So he sent diametrically some to them, and commanded to board them, and bring them to him, that he may well panorama them by hurt, and learn what their creation was give.
Based on Josephus' view that Rahab was an innkeeper, one writer came to the nearby that Rahab was a disarming creation individual and that the word "harlot" was used as a unflattering when of her endowment. He wrote:
It is our intended judgment, based upon what we store read in the Bible and in the Writings of Josephus that Rahab made fine clothing (the complain for all the flax that she had on her covering, sufficient to stand the two spies in). Her trade, methodically having to travel desire distances to capture her fine linen de rigueur to be put up. Rahab overly ran a [sic] inn, and she methodically put her customers up in her inn. Why did ancestors of that time label a disarming creation individual "a harlot?" Maybe her creation did cap than their creation.
The complain Josephus was wretched to arrive on the scene down the fact that Rahab was a prostitute was when of the separate she played in Jewish history. According to the Babylonian Talmud, Rahab was one of the ancestresses of the seer Jeremiah.
The writer of the book of Joshua says that the respect of Rahab survived in Israel. He wrote: "But Rahab the prostitute, with her background and all who belonged to her, Joshua spared. Her background has lived in Israel ever to the same extent. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho" (Joshua 6:25).
This face by the Deuteronomistic writer with no trouble indicates that the story of Rahab does not end with the book of Joshua. It is sufficient that Rahab became a proselyte and persuaded to the desire of Israel and that a group of ancestors who were established with Rahab survived in Israel. It is sufficient that the three hundred forty-five ancestors from Jericho who returned with Ezra from Babylon (Ezra 2:34; Nehemiah 7:36) and the men of Jericho who helped Nehemiah in renovation the brickwork of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3:2) were descent of Rahab.
As for Rahab herself, the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 1:5 ) says that Rahab became the companion of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, and the ancestress of Boaz who was Jesse's grandfather. Thus, Matthew says that Rahab, set down Salmon and Boaz, became the mother of the line from which David's background sprang, and set down David, Jesus Christ. Rahab was one of the four perplexing women mentioned in the genealogy of Christ: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.
Rahab overly appears in the list of the ancestors who lived by desire and who were saved by desire. In Hebrews 11:31 Rahab is praised as an reproduction of faith:
"By desire Rahab the harlot did not depart with nation who were disobedient, when she had precise companionable welcome to the spies."
In James 2:25 Rahab is praised for decrease the spies and in the name wisdom reason set down what she did for the produce of God:
"And in the exceedingly way was not overly Rahab the harlot fair by works in the same way as she normal the messengers and sent them out latest way?"
Submit is no complain to avoid the ignominy of career Rahab a prostitute. Rahab stands as indication of the transforming power of God. By believing in the God of Israel, Rahab, a individual who submitted herself to the desires of men, found compassion in the same way as she submitted herself to the spur of God and was added to a tough list of ancestors whose lives were distorted in the same way as they assumed in God.
Claude Mariottini
Educationalist of Old Memorial
Northern Baptist School
