Joshuachapter 2
24 verses · Joshua, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · History
Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.
Introduction
Joshua, by tradition, History, Joshua Overview.
The second chapter moves from the camp of Israel to a single house inside an enemy city, and its central figure is a Canaanite woman. It was kept for a nation that would live beside the peoples of that land for generations. The writer tells it as a story of danger, with the reader always knowing more than the king does. Listen for how much the people of Jericho already know about the God of Israel. Pay attention to the terms of the oath and the sign that seals it. Her name returns in the line of David and in the New Testament.
Context
- Who
- A nation about to attack a fortified city it had never seen
- What
- The secret scouting of Jericho by two spies and the oath they swear to Rahab, who hides them.
- Where
- Jericho, a walled city in the Jordan valley, and Rahab's house built into its wall.
- When
- A few days before the crossing, in the spring when the flax was cut; the year is argued as in chapter 1.
- Why
- To show that fear of the LORD had already reached Canaan, and that a Canaanite who trusted Him was spared with her household.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to two spies sent secretly out of Shittim and to Rahab, a prostitute of Jericho. Moses had sent twelve men openly at Numbers 13:2, one from every tribe, and Joshua was one of the two who came back willing to go up. He now sends two men and tells nobody.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
Jericho had a king of its own, which is how Canaan was organised through this book. Joshua 12:24 counts thirty-one such kings at the end, each holding one city and the land around it.
A first hearer knew what a city gate was for. It shut at dusk and opened at dawn, so men caught inside after dark could not walk out, which is why the spies leave down a rope through a window. Albert Barnes sets Paul's escape at 2 Corinthians 11:33 beside it.
The window opens on open country because the back wall of the house is the town wall. A house built into the wall of a city was ordinary, and it was where the poorer households and the trades that served travellers lived.
Flax was pulled in the spring and dried in stalks on the flat roofs, so the stalks Rahab hides the men under are the season's own crop. The same season fills the river, which is what makes the crossing of chapter 3 hard rather than convenient.
The word the older versions render harlot is the ordinary Hebrew word for a prostitute, and Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 both keep it. Adam Clarke argued that she kept a house of entertainment, and Albert Barnes answered that Leviticus 21:7 and Jeremiah 5:7 will not allow that rendering.
She asks the men to swear by the LORD, using the covenant name rather than a Canaanite one, and the word she uses for kindness is the covenant word for loyal love. A sworn oath bound a household and not only the man who spoke it, which is why she can bargain for her father, her mother and her brothers and sisters.
Significance
Her speech in verses 9 to 11 is the Song of the Sea coming true inside Canaan. Exodus 15:14 to 16 had said the inhabitants of Canaan would melt away, and forty years later a woman in Jericho says their hearts did melt.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The country had been keeping account of Israel the whole time. She names the Red Sea, which was forty years old, and Sihon and Og from Numbers 21, which was recent news.
For the first hearers the report at verse 24 was the answer to Numbers 13:31 to 33. The same country that ten men had called unconquerable is now reported faint, and the report comes out of the mouth of a Canaanite.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter is heard once a year, on the Sabbath of the portion Sh'lach, which is the account of the twelve spies sent into the land. Joshua 2 is the account of two spies sent into the same land a generation later, and that pairing is what the cycle records. The corpus keeps the join visible. Under the first verse of this chapter it carries two locators from the portion itself, Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 1:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Sh'lach 1:1, with Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 1:24:1 beside them. A reader who wants the reason for the pairing follows those three.
How it is read
Rashi dates the mission before he reads a word of it, and he is quoted here from the Metsudah Publications Book of Joshua of 1997, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He counts backwards from the crossing on the tenth of the first month, through the three days the spies hid and the days after. The count reaches the seventh of Adar for the death of Moses. "I am forced to say that it was during the mourning for Moshe that he sent them" (Rashi on Joshua 2:1:1). The date of the death of Moses is derived from this chapter rather than stated in it, which is worth knowing before a reader meets the same date elsewhere.
The Hebrew word for the manner of the sending carries two readings in the same note. Targum Yonason renders it secretly, and Rashi reports the order in those terms. "Pretend to be deaf-mutes so they will not conceal their activities from you." The second reading changes one letter and makes it pottery. "Load yourselves with pots in order to look like pottery salesmen" (Rashi on Joshua 2:1:2). Rashi reads the verb of the second verse as searching (Rashi on Joshua 2:2:1). He glosses the fords of the seventh verse as the crossing places of the river, where the pursuers expected men doubling back toward Moab (Rashi on Joshua 2:7:1).
The hiding of the spies is a single Hebrew verb in the singular, and the commentators work on the number rather than pass over it. Rashi offers a grammatical answer first, that she hid them in so narrow a place that they were as one. He then reports an aggadic answer from the Midrash of Rabbi Tanchuma. The two men were Phinehas and Caleb, and Phinehas "stood before them but they did not see him because he was like an angel" (Rashi on Joshua 2:4:1). The third answer is that she hid each of them separately. Three readings of one verb stand side by side in the note, and Rashi settles none of them.
Rahab herself is read at length, and a Christian reader will find the classical portrait franker than the one he is used to. On the failure of courage in the eleventh verse Rashi reports the Sages plainly. There was no prince or ruler in the land who had not been with her. She was ten years old when Israel came out of Egypt, and she was a harlot for forty years (Rashi on Joshua 2:11:1). The rope of the fifteenth verse is the same rope her visitors climbed, and Rashi gives her a sentence at the window. "Master of the World with these I have sinned, with these forgive me" (Rashi on Joshua 2:15:1). Repentance, in that reading, is the hinge of the whole episode, and it is what makes her exemption from the ban intelligible inside the tradition. This site argues the ban itself at /featured/the-canaanite-conquest and treats Rahab at /featured/rahab-and-the-scarlet-cord, and the card leaves the argument to them.
The commentators divide over how much Rahab knew. Rashi asks how she could have known the pursuers would return in three days, and answers that she had divine inspiration. The Metsudah edition prints a note beside him reporting the reading of Radak. She reasoned it out from the distance: a day to the river, a day searching, a day back (Rashi on Joshua 2:16:1, with the edition's note). On the sign itself Rashi keeps the initiative with the spies, since she asked them to make it and to know it again when the city fell (Rashi on Joshua 2:12:1 and 2:17:1). He glosses the scarlet cord of the eighteenth verse as a line or rope (Rashi on Joshua 2:18:1). He reads the clause about blood in the nineteenth as guilt a man brings on himself (Rashi on Joshua 2:19:1). The corpus carries ten further notes on this chapter without an English text. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Joshua 2:3:1, 2:5:1, 2:8:1, 2:14:1, 2:21:1 and 2:24:1, at Metzudat David on Joshua 2:9:1 and 2:20:1, and at Malbim on Joshua 2:2:1 and 2:13:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse, the sending, it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 16:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 1:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Sh'lach 1:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 1:24:1. A passage of Otzar Midrashim from the baraita of the thirty-two rules of aggadah, at 1:29, stands with them. On the second verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 26:19:1.
The hiding on the roof draws both Talmuds. On the fourth verse the corpus holds Bamidbar Rabbah 8:9, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 42:11:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 8:2. On the sixth, the stalks of flax, it holds Shabbat 27b:8, Berakhot 43b:1, Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 2:3:1 and Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 6:6:6.
Rahab's confession is the most worked passage in the chapter. On the ninth verse it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 42:14. On the tenth it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:2 and 15:11, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:4 and Zevakhim 14:4, and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Zevachim 14:1. On the eleventh, the verse where the spirit of the land fails, it holds Devarim Rabbah 2:28, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 18:11, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 3:42 and Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 33:1:5. On the twelfth it holds Pesikta DeRav Kahana 13:4, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 17:8 and Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 11:1 and 999:1.
The escape and the sign carry the rest. On the fifteenth verse, the rope at the window, the corpus holds Arakhin 32a:9, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:4:11, Jerusalem Talmud Maasrot 3:4:12 and Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:8. On the sixteenth, the three days in the hills, it holds Bereshit Rabbah 56:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 22:4:1, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 1:24:1 and Midrash Tehillim 22:3. On the seventeenth it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 1:9 and 1:11. On the eighteenth, the scarlet cord, it holds Megillah 14b:12, Midrash Mishlei 31:5 and Sifrei Bamidbar 78:1. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Joshua 2:1:1 to 2:23:1, the Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997, reported CC-BY; Targum Jonathan, Targum Yonason on Joshua 2:1, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Joshua 2:1:2; Midrash of Rabbi Tanchuma, the aggadah on the two spies, as Rashi reports it at Rashi on Joshua 2:4:1; Radak, Radak on Joshua 2:3:1, 2:5:1, 2:8:1, 2:14:1, 2:21:1 and 2:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; his reading of the three days reported in the Metsudah edition's note at Rashi on Joshua 2:16:1; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Joshua 2:9:1 and 2:20:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Joshua 2:2:1 and 2:13:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/joshua/2.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Sh'lach entry pairing this chapter with Numbers 13 to 15.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Two spies hidden under the stalks of flax
Shittim is the camp of Numbers 25:1, where Israel fell into immorality with the women of Moab, and the last stop before the river. Joshua sends two men secretly, where Moses sent twelve openly at Numbers 13:2. Albert Barnes answers Adam Clarke’s reading of Rahab as an innkeeper from Leviticus 21:7 and Jeremiah 5:7, since the word is the ordinary Hebrew for a prostitute.
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)evangelical
2 more voices on this verseWhat 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. 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.”
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. 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)patristic
Joshua 2:2-3
The report reaches the king the same night, and he already knows the men are from Israel, so the city had been watching the river. Jericho has its own king, one to a city as through the whole book, and 12:24 counts thirty-one. The king asks Rahab to bring the men out without a search, which Adam Clarke takes as a sign her house was a public lodging.
Wesley remarks that Israel likely had one friend in all Jericho. The spies were led straight to her door on their first night. He draws the lesson that what seems most accidental is often overruled to serve the great ends of providence.
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, 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)evangelical
Joshua 2:4-5
She has hidden them before she speaks, so her words at the door cover a decision already made. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the lie a sinful expedient pardoned in a believer, and Adam Clarke and John Wesley call it sin. James 2:25 commends her receiving of the messengers and Hebrews 11:31 her faith, and neither mentions her answer.
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. 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)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
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 17.17.1-2patristic
Clarke notes that the king's demand came after dark, and the night itself served the plan, since in daylight the spies could hardly have escaped. God, he adds, could have saved them without her falsehood.
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. 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)evangelical
Joshua 2:6-7
Flax was pulled in spring and dried on flat roofs, and Adam Clarke puts that harvest at the end of March, days before the crossing of 4:19. The same season floods the Jordan at 3:15, so the harvest that hides the spies also makes the river impassable. With the gate shut behind the pursuers, the two men must go down the wall.
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, 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)evangelical
Barnes takes these to be the fords of Judges 3:28, where Ehud's men later held the crossing against Moab. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place two fords near Jericho, above and below the pilgrims' bathing place. The shut gate would trap any spy still inside.
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. THE COVENANT BETWEEN HER AND THEM.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
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.”
Rahab's confession and the oath she asks for
Joshua 2:8-11
Her speech is the Song of the Sea coming true in Canaan, since Exodus 15:14-16 foretold its people melting in dread, and she says “our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed”. She names the Red Sea and the recent defeat of Sihon and Og. Her confession echoes Deuteronomy 4:39, and Albert Barnes observes that the reports which brought her to faith left her countrymen only afraid.
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.”
Clarke thinks her claim to know rested on inference from Israel's victories over the Amorites, their great numbers and the terror she saw around her. Henry reads it as faith. He sets her beside John 20:29, belief without sight, since she had seen none of the wonders herself.
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)evangelical
Devoted to destruction is the ban of Deuteronomy 2:34 and 3:6, under which the cities of Sihon and Og were destroyed whole. Henry says the report told Rahab that no mercy would be shown to the Canaanites. Her plea for her family in verse 13 follows from it.
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,....”
Clarke asks how a Canaanite came to so full a confession and offers three answers. Knowledge of the true God may still have been general in the earth, she may have learned from the spies, or God may have taught her directly. Henry thinks there was perhaps no faith so great in Israel.
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. 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.)”
Joshua 2:12-14
She asks them to swear by the LORD, the covenant name, and Adam Clarke reads that as the measure of what she had learned. The word for “kindness” is the covenant word for loyal love, and she asks it back in the terms she gave it. Her list names father, mother, brothers and sisters, with no husband or children, and the men stake their own lives on the bargain.
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. 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)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
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)puritan
Clarke thinks she had learned that the whole population was doomed, which is why she asks for a covenant to deliver them from death. Joshua 6:25 records that they lived on in Israel. Henry notes that Rahab became the wife of Salmon and an ancestor of Christ at Matthew 1:5.
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)evangelical
Barnes reads the words as a form of oath, calling on God to take their lives if they failed her, and compares the commoner form at 1 Samuel 1:26. The condition had a practical reason. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say it protected her, since a known agreement would put her house in danger.
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)evangelical
The scarlet line in the window
Joshua 2:15-16
The window opens on open country because the back of the house is the town wall, and Albert Barnes sets Paul’s escape at 2 Corinthians 11:33 beside it. Readers weigh this house against 6:20, where the wall falls flat, though 6:22-23 fetches her from a house still standing, and the text gives no explanation. She then tells two strangers which way to run and how long to hide.
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).”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown identify the hills as the limestone range north of Jericho called Quarantania, its sides full of caves. They render she said as she had said, since the advice belongs to the talk before she let the men down. Wesley counts three days as one day and parts of two.
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)evangelical
Joshua 2:17-19
The oath carries three conditions: the scarlet cord in the window, every relative inside the house, and silence about the mission. The formula “his blood will be on his own head” is legal language, as at 2 Samuel 1:16, and lays the account on the man who walks out. Safety inside a marked house recalls Exodus 12:22, and Origen and Matthew Henry read the two nights together.
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)evangelical
Wesley thinks it was the rope of verse 15. Barnes says the thread was dyed deep scarlet with cochineal so that it caught the eye at once. He links the color to the cleansing rites of Leviticus 14:4 and Numbers 19:6.
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. 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)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
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)puritan
ConnectionsHebrews 11:31, Hebrews 9:22, Strong's H8615
The second half turns the formula on the spies, who accept the guilt if anyone inside is harmed. Wesley reads it as their taking on the sin, shame and punishment of such a death. Henry says careful keepers of promises make them with care.
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." 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 3.5patristic
Joshua 2:20-21
She ties the cord the moment they are gone, while the city stands whole and no army is in sight. Clement of Rome, Ambrose of Milan and Origen read the scarlet as a figure of the blood, and Charles Spurgeon preached it as The Scarlet Line in the Window. The New Testament names Rahab three times without the cord, and Matthew Henry gives the reading as a resemblance only.
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.”
1 more voice on this verse
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. 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)evangelical
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture the cord hanging straight down the outside of the wall, where its red would be seen. Some had supposed it was woven into a lattice. They set that view aside.
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, 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 5.10.127patristic
Joshua 2:22-24
The report at verse 24 hands Rahab’s sentence from verse 9 back to Joshua, “all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of us”, so the intelligence came from a Canaanite. Beside Numbers 13:31-33, where ten spies said Israel could not go up, this reports the same country the opposite way. Adam Clarke marks the contrast and reads this report as what Joshua needed to plan the campaign.
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. 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.”
Clarke counts the three days as the night of their escape, the next day and the night after, with the return on the third day. They crossed a river then in flood. Joshua 3:15 places the flood in this same harvest season, and the nation crossed only when the water stopped.
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)evangelical
Henry reads the report as a people with neither the wisdom to yield nor the courage to fight. The spies concluded that the land was already theirs. Henry treats such terror as an omen that a fall is near.
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. 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)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A reconnaissance narrative that turns into an oath scene, with the intelligence report handed back at the end, as Clarke classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Melting hearts, said by the enemy and later by Israel | Rahab says at verse 11 that the hearts of Jericho melted and no courage remained. Joshua 5:1 says the same of the Amorite kings after the crossing, and 7:5 writes it of Israel after the defeat at Ai. The site's published exposition of verses 8 to 11 sets her words against Exodus 15:14 to 16, where the Song of the Sea said the inhabitants of Canaan would melt away.Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry, Notes on the Old Testament and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:8-11. | Joshua 2:9, Joshua 2:11, Joshua 2:24 |
| Kindness asked back in the words it was given in | The word Rahab uses at verse 12 is the covenant word for loyal love, and she asks it back in the terms she gave it, kindness for kindness. She swears them by the LORD, using the covenant name rather than a Canaanite one, which Adam Clarke reads as the measure of what she had already learned. Her list runs father, mother, brothers and sisters, with no husband and no children in it, so every person she bargains for is somebody else.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:12-14. | Joshua 2:12, Joshua 2:13, Joshua 2:14 |
| The three conditions of the oath | The men state three terms and the chapter keeps them in order: 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 at Exodus 12:22.Matthew Henry and John Gill, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:17-19. | Joshua 2:17, Joshua 2:18, Joshua 2:19, Joshua 2:20 |
| Gone out and shut in | The chapter opens with two men going in through a gate and closes with them coming back over the river with a report. In between the gate is shut at verse 7 and the only way out is a rope through a window. The site's published exposition of verses 6 and 7 marks that the pursuers take the road to the fords. The gate closes behind them, which is why the men have to go down the wall.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:15-16. | Joshua 2:1, Joshua 2:7, Joshua 2:15, Joshua 2:23 |
The debated concept: was Rahab right to lie
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The site's published dossier carries this as one of the book's contested points, with holders on both sides and no verdict.
The first position holds that the lie was itself sinful and that what Scripture praises is her faith rather than her words. It is held by Augustine in De Mendacio, about AD 395, and Contra Mendacium, AD 420, and it is the reading the older commentators take. John Wesley calls the answer unquestionably sinful though her intention was good. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call it a sinful expedient pardoned in a believer. Adam Clarke writes that God never says to any, do evil that good may come of it. The ground is strong because the two New Testament passages that name her commend the receiving of the messengers at James 2:25 and the faith at Hebrews 11:31. Neither of them mentions the answer she gave at the door.
The second position holds that protecting innocent life outranks the duty to speak to a man who has no right to the answer. It is argued as graded absolutism by Norman Geisler in Christian Ethics: Options and Issues, 1989. John Cassian took the older form of it, holding that for the concealment itself she earned a share in the blessing of God's people. The ground is that the officers at the door were asking in order to kill. She had already hidden the men before she spoke, so her words covered a decision that was itself commended.
The site states no verdict on it, and the chapter passes no sentence on her either way.
The New Testament's use
Rahab is named three times in the New Testament and never for the cord. Hebrews 11:31 reads her as faith, placed in the roll of faith immediately after the falling wall of Hebrews 11:30. James 2:25 reads her as works, justified when she received the messengers and sent them out another way. Matthew 1:5 puts her in the line of Christ as the mother of Boaz, and the site's published dossier carries that entry with its anchor.
The scarlet line has been read as a figure of the blood since the early church. Clement of Rome makes the link in his letter to Corinth, and 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 scene as The Scarlet Line in the Window. The site's published exposition of verses 20 and 21 states that the New Testament nowhere makes that link. The reading stands in those writers' names rather than an apostle's, and Matthew Henry gives it as a resemblance rather than as an argument.
The historical value
The chapter records the practices of a walled Canaanite town from the inside. The gate shuts at dusk, and a pursuit goes out along the road to the fords. Flax dries in stalks on a flat roof in the spring, and a house stands in the wall itself with a window on the country. The site's published dossier treats the date of Jericho's destruction as a contested point and carries the excavation history of Tell es-Sultan with the excavators named, which belongs with chapter 6 rather than here. What this chapter supplies is the town's own account of what it had heard, the Red Sea from forty years earlier and Sihon and Og from Numbers 21, which is recent news carried inland fast.
Keep studying
Studies7
Words12
Trails1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:22-24; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:8-11 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, cited in the site's published exposition of Joshua 2:17-19.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.