And the city shall be cursed, even it, and all that therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house: because she hid the messengers that we sent.
Joshua 6:17.
- Treasures in a Stained Vessel
Rahab was a harlot; even the Bible identified her by that appalling trade, but she was a good person at heart, and very hospitable too. She had probably been forced into the sex trade by the difficulties of life. She hid the men that came her way, and would not deliver them to harm. Every harlot is not a devil; some of them are great souls merely stained by the constraints of a hard life.
Much later, when Rahab had relocated to Israel, she married a noble man of Judah called Salmon, and gave birth to a noble son Boaz, who became the husband of Ruth the woman from Moab. King David and King Jesus are traced from her lineage (Ruth 4:17-22; Matthew 1:4-7, 15-16). Rahab was a woman with kings in her womb. Harlotry had merely been a temporary stain. Grace found her and washed that stain away, revealing the treasures in her great soul, opening the path to her great destiny.
- A Future Secured by a Hospitable Past
In Joshua 6:17, the voice of Joshua is heard announcing in the present that her future had been preserved by a past in which she had done a kind deed to some strangers. Had she failed to show that kindness in the past, she would have lost her great future. Those men had come not merely as spies; they carried her destiny. You never know how far a good deed can go. Every good deed is an investment that someday will yield a blessing. Keep sowing.
- Saved in a Harlot’s House
Joshua said that death would come to everyone in Jericho, except for those in the harlot’s house. Can refuge ever be found in a harlot’s room? God’s ways are a mystery. Rahab’s household was going to be saved not merely at her relations but by being in her house; by being in particular place at a specific time.
Where time finds you, sometimes, determines destiny. Had those persons been anywhere else when Jericho fell, they would have dead; killed not by the sword of the enemy but by missing a right place.
O God, direct my feet in the right way. Deliver me from strong cities marked for destruction. Amen.
- Saved by a Harlot Sister
She was a harlot, but her people couldn’t have been saved but for the ‘mistakes’ of her early life. Rahab did not get the whole city into her room; she let in only her family. They had been preserved by family relationship. They might have sneered her in the past for her unsocial ways, but at last, she also had something to offer, for the preservation of all.
Look beyond Rahab’s stains; you might see a great soul. Amen.
From The Preacher’s diary,
May 7, 2015.
