Joshuachapter 2
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Key verse
unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother and brothers and all your family into your house.
It stands in The scarlet line in the window, verses 15 to 24.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Two spies enter Jericho and lodge with Rahab the harlot. She hides them under the stalks of flax on her roof and confesses more than Israel's own generation had: 'Jehovah your God, he is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath.' The city's heart has already melted at the Red Sea report and at Sihon and Og. She asks for kindness, and they answer with the scarlet line bound in her window, long read as a type of the blood that marks a house for sparing. Hebrews 11 enrolls Rahab by faith, James 2 by her works, and Matthew 1 in the Messiah's line.
Context
History · Joshua · Joshua overview
Where the chapter sits
Joshua 2 falls in Entry into the Land (chapters 1–5). Commissioning of Joshua; Rahab and the spies; Jordan crossing; memorial stones at Gilgal; circumcision and Passover; the Captain of the LORD's host.
Rahab and the spies. The scarlet cord in the window: genealogy-of-Christ foreshadow (Matt 1:5).
After it: Conquest campaigns, chapters 6–12.
The whole shape of Joshua→The world behind this chapter
Joshua 2The history
Jericho sat beside a strong spring in the Jordan valley, surrounded by palm groves, at the point where the road up to the central hill country begins. It was not a large city by area but it controlled the crossing and the road, which is why it had to be taken first.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Rahab's house is described as built into the wall. Excavation at Jericho and other sites shows exactly this arrangement: houses constructed against or between the walls of a defensive system, with outer windows. That is how a cord could hang down the outside and how men could be let down without passing the gate.
The city gate was shut at dark, which is why the pursuit went out immediately and the spies could not simply walk away. Meanwhile the two men were under stalks of flax drying on the flat roof, flax was harvested in spring, laid out to dry before it was retted and spun, and spring is exactly when the Jordan runs high, matching the crossing that follows.
The dating of Jericho's destruction has been argued for a century. Early excavation dated the fall of the walls to roughly the biblical period; a later dig reassigned the destruction to an earlier century, and more recent reexamination of the pottery has argued the earlier reading was right. The debate turns on pottery sequences and on how much of the site erosion removed; the traditional fifteenth-century conquest reading remains defended in print.
What it meant to them
What Rahab says is the heart of the chapter. The whole country had heard about the Red Sea forty years earlier and about Sihon and Og recently, and their hearts had melted. Israel thought it was the underdog; Jericho thought Israel was unstoppable.
And the first person inside the land to confess that the LORD is God in heaven above and on earth below is a Canaanite woman of bad reputation, who is spared with her whole family by a scarlet cord in a window.
Sources cited
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Two spies hidden under the stalks of flax
1. (v. 1)
Joshua 2:1
“Rahab; what is the force of her name? We have been following the historical sense; let us now reflect upon the anagogic significance of the name. Rahab thus admits of two interpretations: the name may imply either a "broad space" or, better, "pride." Consider, therefore, its impact.”
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She who formerly walked the broad, spacious road to death, she whose pride was driving her to destruction, was later converted unto humility.
Jerome· written before 420· HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 18 (Ps 86)· Joshua 2:1patristic
Joshua 2:1, 2 more voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Joshua 2:1
“An harlot’s house - In the face of the parallel passages (e. g. Lev 21:7: Jer 5:7) the rendering advocated for obvious reasons, namely, “the house of a woman, an innkeeper,” cannot be maintained.”
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Rahab must remain an example under the Law similar to that Luk 7:37 under the Gospel, of “a woman that was a sinner,” yet, because of her faith, not only pardoned, but exalted to the highest honor.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Joshua 2:1evangelical
Joshua 2:1
“Jericho - That is, the land about Jericho, together with the city. The land and Jericho, that is, especially Jericho. Harlot's - So the Hebrew word is used, Judg. xi, 1, and so it is rendered by two apostles, Heb. xi, 31 James ii, 25, such she either now was, or rather, had been formerly.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)· Joshua 2:1evangelical
a.Shittim is the camp of Numbers 25:1, where Israel committed whoredom with the daughters of Moab, and it is the last stop before the river. Joshua sends two men and sends them secretly, where Moses sent twelve openly at Numbers 13:2, a man from every tribe. The word the King James renders harlot is the ordinary Hebrew word for a prostitute, and Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 both keep it when they name her. Adam Clarke argues she kept a house of entertainment and Albert Barnes answers that Leviticus 21:7 and Jeremiah 5:7 will not allow that rendering, and Joshua uses the same word of her again at 6:17 and 6:25.
2. (vv. 2-3)
Joshua 2:2
“And it was told the king of Jericho, saying,....”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Joshua 2:2reformed
Joshua 2:3
“The king of Jericho sent unto Rahab - This appears to be a proof of the preceding opinion: had she been a prostitute or a person of ill fame he could at once have sent officers to have seized the persons lodged with her as vagabonds; but if she kept a house of entertainment…”
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the persons under her roof were sacred, according to the universal custom of the Asiatics, and could not be molested on any trifling grounds.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:3evangelical
a.The report reaches the throne the same night the men arrive, and the king already knows they are of the children of Israel, so the city had been watching the river before anybody crossed it. Jericho has a king of its own, which is how Canaan is organised through this book, one king to a city, and Joshua 12:24 counts thirty-one of them at the end. The king sends word asking Rahab to bring the men out rather than sending officers to search the house, and Adam Clarke takes that as a sign her house was a public lodging where guests could not be seized on light grounds.
3. (vv. 4-5)
Joshua 2:4
“This was the case with Rahab. Scripture not only recalls nothing virtuous about her but even speaks of her immorality. Yet for her lie alone, whereby she chose to conceal the spies rather than betray them, she deserved to share an eternal blessing with the people of God.”
John Cassian· written before 435· CONFERENCE 17.17.1-2· Joshua 2:4patristic
Joshua 2:4, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:4
“And this is justly mentioned as a great and generous act of faith, Heb. xi, 31, for she apparently ventured her life upon a steadfast persuasion of the truth of God's word and promise given to the Israelites.”
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Whence they were - Her answer contained in these and the following words, was false, and therefore unquestionably sinful; tho' her intention was good therein.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)· Joshua 2:4evangelical
Joshua 2:5
“When it was dark - So it appears that it was after night that the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, ordering her to produce the persons who lodged with her. The season itself was friendly to the whole plot: had these transactions taken place in daylight, it is scarcely possible that the spies could have escaped.”
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But this is no excuse for the woman’s prevarication, for God could have saved his messengers independently of her falsity. God never says to any, Do evil that good may come of it. See at the end of the chapter, Jos 2:24 (note).
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:5evangelical
a.She has hidden them before she opens her mouth, so the words at the door cover a decision already made. What she says is false, and the older commentators say so without softening it: John Wesley calls it unquestionably sinful though her intention was good, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call it a sinful expedient pardoned in a believer, and Adam Clarke writes that God never says to any, Do evil that good may come of it. John Cassian took the other line and held that for the concealment itself she earned a share in the blessing of God's people. Scripture commends the receiving of the messengers at James 2:25 and the faith at Hebrews 11:31, and neither passage mentions the answer she gave the officers.
4. (vv. 6-7)
Joshua 2:6
“Hid then with the stalks of flax - It is a matter of little consequence whether we translate פסתי העיץ pistey haets stalks of flax, or stalks of hemp: the word עץ ets, which signifies wood, serves to show that whether it was hemp or flax, it was in its rough, unmanufactured state; and as this was about the season…”
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viz., the end of March or the beginning of April, in which the flax is ripe in that country, consequently Rahab’s flax might have been recently pulled, and was now drying on the roof of her house.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:6evangelical
Joshua 2:7
“The sense is, that “they pursued along the way which leads to Jordan and across the fords;” probably those described in Jdg 3:28.”
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Joshua 2:7evangelical
Joshua 2:7, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:7
“The first and second immediately below the sea of Galilee; the third and fourth immediately above and below the pilgrims' bathing-place, opposite Jericho. as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate--This precaution was to ensure the capture of the spies, should they have been lurking in the city.”
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THE COVENANT BETWEEN HER AND THEM.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)· Joshua 2:7reformed
a.Flax was pulled in the spring and dried on the flat roofs, and Adam Clarke puts that harvest at the end of March, which sets this night within days of the crossing dated to the tenth day of the first month at Joshua 4:19. Joshua 3:15 says the Jordan overflows all his banks all the time of harvest, so the same season that gives Rahab her hiding place is what makes the river impassable. The pursuers take the road to the fords and the gate is shut behind them, which is why the two men cannot walk out of the city and have to go down the wall.
B. Rahab's confession and the oath she asks for
1. (vv. 8-11)
Joshua 2:8
“And before they were laid down,.... Under the stalks of the flax; or rather, since they are said to be hid in them, before they were fallen asleep, so Kimchi and Abarbinel: she came up unto them upon the roof; to acquaint them how things were, and to converse with them on the following subjects.”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Joshua 2:8reformed
Joshua 2:9
“I know that the Lord hath given you the land - It is likely she had this only from conjecture, having heard of their successes against the Amorites, their prodigious numbers, and seeing the state of terror and dismay to which the inhabitants of her own land were reduced.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:9evangelical
Joshua 2:10
“For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt,....”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Joshua 2:10reformed
Joshua 2:11
“The Lord your God, he is God - From the rumour of God’s miraculous interpositions Rahab believed, and makes the self-same confession to which Moses endeavors to bring Israel by rehearsing similar arguments Deu 4:39. Rahab had only heard of what Israel had experienced. Her faith then was ready.”
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It is noteworthy, too, that the same reports which work faith and conversion in the harlot, cause only terror and astonishment among her countrymen. (Compare Luk 8:37-39.)
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Joshua 2:11evangelical
a.Her speech is the Song of the Sea coming true inside Canaan. Exodus 15:14-16 said the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away and that fear and dread shall fall upon them, and forty years later a woman in Jericho says our hearts did melt and no courage remained in any man. She names the Red Sea, which is forty years old, and Sihon and Og from Numbers 21, which is recent, so the country has been keeping account of Israel the whole time; Joshua 5:1 then reports the same fear from the kings themselves. Her last words, that the Lord is God in heaven above and in earth beneath, are what Moses presses on Israel at Deuteronomy 4:39, and Albert Barnes observes that the reports which brought a Canaanite to faith left her countrymen only afraid.
2. (vv. 12-14)
Joshua 2:12
“Swear unto me by the Lord - This is a farther proof that this woman had received considerable instruction in the Jewish faith; she acknowledged the true God by his essential character Jehovah; and knew that an oath in his name was the deepest and most solemn obligation under which a Jew could possibly come.”
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Does not this also refer to the command of God, Thou shalt fear the Lord, and shalt swear by his name? See the note on Deu 6:13.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:12evangelical
Joshua 2:12, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:12
“Yet this Rahab was afterwards advanced to be a princess in Israel, the wife of Salmon, and one of the ancestors of Christ, Matt. i. Those that faithfully serve Christ and suffer for him he will not only protect, but prefer, and will do for them more than they are able to ask or think.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)· Joshua 2:12puritan
Joshua 2:13
“Deliver our lives from death - She had learned, either from the spies or otherwise, that all the inhabitants of the land were doomed to destruction, and therefore she obliges them to enter into a covenant with her for the preservation of herself and her household.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:13evangelical
Joshua 2:13, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:13
“And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters,....”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Joshua 2:13reformed
Joshua 2:14
“Our life for yours - “May our life be destroyed if we suffer yours to be injured!” This is what was anciently called in our country pledging - staking, a man’s life for that of his neighbor or friend.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:14evangelical
a.She asks them to swear by the Lord, using the covenant name rather than a Canaanite one, and Adam Clarke reads that as the measure of what she had already learned. The word rendered kindness is the covenant word for loyal love, and she asks it back in the terms she gave it, kindness for kindness. Her list runs father, mother, brethren and sisters, with no husband and no children in it, and every person she bargains for is somebody else. The men stake their own lives on the bargain and attach a condition to it, which verses 17 to 20 then spell out.
C. The scarlet line in the window
1. (vv. 15-16)
Joshua 2:15
“Upon the town wall - The town wall probably formed the back wall of the house, and the window opened therefore into the country. (Compare Paul’s escape, 2Co 11:33).”
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Joshua 2:15evangelical
Joshua 2:16
“The mountain - That is, to some of the mountains wherewith Jericho was encompassed, in which also there were many caves where they might lurk. Three days - Not three whole days, but one whole day, and part of two days.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)· Joshua 2:16evangelical
a.The window opens on open country because the back wall of the house is the town wall, and Albert Barnes sets Paul's escape at 2 Corinthians 11:33 beside it, let down by the wall in a basket. A house built into the wall is what readers weigh against Joshua 6:20, where the wall falls down flat, since 6:22-23 has the spies fetching her out of a house still standing; some writers hold that her stretch of wall was left and others that the collapse was not uniform, and the text offers no explanation of its own. Then she tells them which way to run and how long to lie still, which is local knowledge two strangers did not have.
2. (vv. 17-19)
Joshua 2:17
“Said - Or, had said; namely, before she let them down; it being very improbable, either that she would dismiss them before the condition was agreed on; or that she would discourse with them, or they with her, about such secret and weighty things after they were let down, when others might overhear them.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)· Joshua 2:17evangelical
Joshua 2:18
“This line of scarlet thread - תקות חוט השני tikvath chut hashshani. Probably this may mean, this piece of scarlet cloth, or, this cloth (made) of scarlet thread.”
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When the Israelites took the city this piece of red cloth seems to have been hung out of the window by way of flag; and this was the sign on which she and the spies had agreed.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:18evangelical
Joshua 2:18, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:18
“This was like the blood sprinkled upon the door-post, which secured the first-born from the destroying angel, and, being of the same colour, some allude to this also to represent the safety of believers under the protection of the blood of Christ sprinkled on the conscience.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)· Joshua 2:18puritan
Joshua 2:19
“Also this commandment is given to the person who was once a prostitute: "All," it says, "who will be found in your house will be saved. But concerning those who go out from the house, we ourselves are free of them by your oath."”
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Therefore, if anyone wants to be saved, let him come into the house of this one who was once a prostitute. Even if anyone from that people wants to be saved, let him come in order to be able to attain salvation.
Origen of Alexandria· written before 253· HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 3.5· Joshua 2:19patristic
a.The oath carries three conditions and the men state each one: the scarlet line hung in the window, every relative gathered inside the house, and silence about the errand. His blood shall be upon his head is a legal formula rather than a threat, the same words David uses at 2 Samuel 1:16, and it puts the account on the man who walks out. Safety lies inside a marked house and nowhere outside it, which is the shape of the night in Exodus 12:22, where none was to go out at the door of his house until the morning, and Origen and Matthew Henry both read the two passages together.
3. (vv. 20-21)
Joshua 2:20
“If thou utter this our business - It was prudent to make her life depend on her secresy; had it been otherwise she might have been tempted to give information, not only concerning the spies, but concerning the designs of the Israelites.”
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But her life being at stake, added to every other motive, she kept the secret for the sake of her own personal safety and that of all her relatives.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:20evangelical
Joshua 2:20, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:20
“And if thou utter this our business,.... So that others would either hang out scarlet threads or get into her house for shelter; see Gill on Jos 2:14, then we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us to swear; be under no obligation to make it good, by saving her and her father's house.”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Joshua 2:20reformed
Joshua 2:21
“A harlot saw this; and she who in the destruction of the city lost all hope of any means of safety, because her faith had conquered, bound a scarlet thread in her window, and thus uplifted a sign of her faith and the banner of the Lord's passion; so that the semblance of the mystic blood…”
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which should redeem the world, might be in memory. So, from outside the city, the name of Joshua was a sign of victory to those who fought. From within, the semblance of the Lord's passion was a sign of salvation to those in danger.
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· Exposition of the Christian Faith 5.10.127· Joshua 2:21patristic
a.She binds the line the moment they are gone, while the city stands whole and no army is in sight. The scarlet has been read as a figure of the blood since the early church: Clement of Rome makes the link in his letter to Corinth, Ambrose of Milan calls it a banner of the Lord's passion, Origen reads the house as the one place of safety, and Charles Spurgeon preached the whole scene as The Scarlet Line in the Window. The New Testament names Rahab three times and never mentions the cord, so the reading belongs to those writers rather than to an apostle, and Matthew Henry gives it as a resemblance and not as an argument.
4. (vv. 22-24)
Joshua 2:22
“Unto the mountain - Probably the mountains to the west and north of Jericho, called afterward, from the belief that the 40 days of our Lord’s temptation were passed among them, the Quarantania.”
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The spies avoided at the first the neighhourhood of the Jordan, where the pursuers sought them: and amidst the grottoes of the limestone rocks, which in later ages were the abode of numerous hermits, they could readily shelter themselves for three days.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Joshua 2:22evangelical
Joshua 2:23
“So the two men returned - Having concealed themselves in the mountains that night, all the next day, and the night ensuing, on the third day they returned to Joshua.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:23evangelical
Joshua 2:23, 1 more voice
Joshua 2:23
“So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain,....”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Joshua 2:23reformed
Joshua 2:24
“Truly the Lord hath delivered into our hands all the land - How different was this report from that brought by the spies on a former occasion! They found that all the inhabitants of the land were panic-struck.”
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The people had heard of the great exploits of the Israelites on the other side of Jordan; and as they had destroyed the potent kings of the Amorites, they took it for granted that nothing could stand before them. This information was necessary to Joshua to guide him in forming the plan of his campaign.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Joshua 2:24evangelical
a.The report at verse 24 is Rahab's own sentence from verse 9 handed back to Joshua, that the inhabitants of the land faint, so the intelligence the invasion runs on came out of the mouth of a Canaanite. Set beside Numbers 13:31-33, where ten men said we be not able to go up and described giants, this is the same country reported in the opposite direction, and Joshua was one of the two who dissented the first time. Adam Clarke marks the contrast between the two reports and reads this one as what Joshua needed in order to plan the campaign.
This page carries no textual note on Joshua 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Christian Faith 5.10.127; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown; Jerome, HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 18 (Ps 86); John Cassian, CONFERENCE 17.17.1-2; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth; Matthew Henry and Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON JOSHUA 3.5.
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