Rahab: A Canaanite in Christ's Ancestry

Today's Reading

Read Joshua 2:9-11: "I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us... For the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath."

Then read Matthew 1:5: "and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth."

Reflection

Rahab should not be in the Bible at all — at least not as a hero. She was a Canaanite, a member of the very people God had marked for judgment. She was a prostitute. She lived in the wall of Jericho, the first city standing between Israel and the Promised Land. By every human measure, she was on the wrong side of the story.

But Rahab had heard things. She had heard about the God of Israel drying up the Red Sea. She had heard about the victories east of the Jordan. And she had drawn a conclusion that most of Israel's own spies, forty years earlier, had failed to draw: "The LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath."

This is a remarkable confession of faith — one of the most theologically precise statements in the entire book of Joshua, and it comes from a pagan woman. Rahab did not have the Torah. She did not have the covenant. She had only the reports of what God had done, and she believed.

Her faith was not abstract. She risked her life to hide the Israelite spies, negotiated for the safety of her family, and tied a scarlet cord in her window as the sign of her trust. When the walls of Jericho fell, her house — built into those very walls — was preserved. She and her entire family were saved.

N.T. Wright observes that Rahab is one of the great examples of how God's purpose from the beginning was to include people from every nation. The walls of Jericho came down, but so did the walls of ethnic and moral exclusion. A Canaanite prostitute entered Israel, married into the tribe of Judah, and became an ancestor of King David and of Jesus Christ Himself.

Going Deeper

James 2:25 and Hebrews 11:31 both hold up Rahab as an example of living faith — faith that acts. She did not merely believe that Israel's God was real. She staked her life on it. Her story demolishes the idea that faith is primarily about having the right background, the right credentials, or the right moral track record. Faith is about hearing what God has done, believing He is who He says He is, and acting accordingly — whatever it costs.