Rahab
The woman of Jericho who hid the spies
Where Scripture records this person
- Joshua 2:1-21
- Joshua 6:17, 22-25
- Hebrews 11:31
- James 2:25
- Matthew 1:5
Who this person is in Scripture
Rahab lives in the wall of Jericho and is called a harlot every time Scripture names her. She hides two Israelite spies, and her words in Joshua 2:9-11 are a confession: she has heard what God did at the Red Sea and to the east of Jordan, and she concludes that the LORD is God in heaven above and in earth beneath. She asks for mercy for her family and receives it.
Matthew names her as the mother of Boaz. Scripture does not say when she married Salmon, or how a Canaanite woman came into Judah's household, and it records no more of her life after Jericho.
Family, as Scripture gives it
- Spouses
- Salmon, according to Matthew 1:5
- Children
- Boaz
Joshua names her father's house but not her husband. The marriage to Salmon is known from Matthew's genealogy.
Promises and covenants this life carries
- A Canaanite is brought inside Israel and into the line of David, by mercy she asked for and was given.
What this teaches
- Rahab's faith is described in Scripture as acting on what she had heard about God before she had seen anything herself.
- Two New Testament writers point to her for different reasons: Hebrews for her faith, James for what her faith did.
Questions the text can answer
Is the Rahab of Matthew 1 the same woman as the Rahab of Jericho?
Matthew's spelling and the timing fit, and Christian readers have long taken them to be the same woman. Matthew himself does not add an explanation, so the identification rests on the name, the period and the fact that Matthew is naming women whose accounts carry scandal.