Did God really choose a brothel owner to play an important role in the family line of Jesus?! YES!! Rahab was a Canaanite woman living in Jericho. She was a business owner. Her business was running a brothel. Yet, scripture commends her righteous act of helping Israel’s spies in both the Old and New Testaments. Her faith was displayed in her actions that were remembered as vital details in the family history of Jesus, our Savior. 

When the Israelites were finally ready to enter the Promised Land, Joshua  sent two spies to survey the land, especially the city of Jericho. The spies entered Jericho and visited Rahab’s brothel. We can only imagine their reason for doing so. Rahab was asked by the king to give up the visitors who had come to see her because he knew they were spies. (Apparently, she and her inn were well known to the city’s leaders.) 

Her response was to lie to the king, mislead his henchmen, and offer protection to the spies. In exchange, she requested protection for her and her extended family when the Israelites came to destroy the city. Her reasoning was that she had heard the stories of God’s power with the Israelites and believed that theirs was the “God in heaven above and in earth below.”  

The spies promised such protection if she would gather her family into her house and tie a scarlet cord in her window so the Israelites would know which family to rescue when they came to conquer the city. Soon after, the Israelites attacked Jericho but not before Joshua ordered the two spies to go in and bring out Rahab and her family to safety. The Israelites were then able to conquer Jericho. Rahab’s help of the spies would be remembered for posterity in the book of Joshua. 

In the New Testament, Matthew wanted to show his Jewish audience that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy that the messiah would come from the tribe of Judah, specifically from the line of King David. In doing so, he included the unusual mention of 5 women. (I wrote about the first one mentioned, Tamar, in the previous blog post.) The second woman mentioned by name is Rahab. Matthew lists her as the mother of Boaz, making her Ruth’s mother-in-law. However, there’s a historical timeline problem with that. The Rahab in the book of Joshua would have lived two centuries before the father of Boaz mentioned in Matthew. While the history doesn’t seem to match in our Western view of history, we must remember the purpose in Matthew’s writing and his assumption that his audiences already knew about the multiple generations he didn’t include in his list. Regardless of how Jewish writers of his time kept track of genealogies, the mention of Rahab would have let his audience be reminded of the many times God had chosen some unlikely people to make God’s plan for salvation become a reality. That should be encouraging to us even today! 

The writer of Hebrews included Rahab in the Hall of Faith, chapter 11, by commending her faith when she hid the spies. The writer of the book of James used Rahab as an example of how we should all exhibit actions that match our faith. 

Rahab’s story was so important to the history of the Jews that she was included by name and by occupation in the book of Joshua. Centuries later, Rahab’s action was such an illustration of faith that the writers in the early church lifted her up as an example to be emulated. Today, we can remember Rahab as a woman who saved Christmas by being part of the family history of Jesus, the Babe in the Manger. 

Everyone’s family history has at least one unsavory character. Yet, their DNA is part of our own. What a great reminder that God can use anyone, any circumstance, and any act of faith to bring about greater purposes beyond our imagination and our lifetime! Merry Christmas! 

I’d love to hear your stories of God doing something beyond your wildest expectations through a family member or life event. Please share in the comment section below! 

The illustration is by Frederick Richard Pickersgill, illustrator of the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us by Charles Foster – http://associate.com/photos/Bible-Pictures–1897-W-A-Foster/page-0084-1.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11905439