Fulfilled: The NIV Devotional Bible for the Single Woman

Rahab

From Prostitute to Protector of God’s People

Rahab was an innkeeper and harlot—a term sometimes used to describe a tavern owner and sometimes a prostitute. Her inn and/or house was part of the exterior wall of the city of Jericho, perhaps one of the world’s oldest cities and the gateway to Canaan, the promised land.

Joshua, the leader of God’s chosen people, the Israelites, sent two spies into Jericho to discover its weaknesses so the Israelites could capture it. The spies, perhaps in disguise, blended in with the jostling crowds entering Jericho and found their way to Rahab’s inn.

Later that day, when Rahab received a message from the king of Jericho asking about the spies, she made a shrewd deal with the spies to protect her parents and siblings when the Israelites attacked Jericho. Then she risked her life and outwitted the royal police by hiding the spies beneath stalks of flax on her flat rooftop.

At dusk Rahab helped the spies escape in a basket over the city wall. Later she hung a red rope in her window so the attacking Israelites would know where she lived. God honored her courage by providing a way of escape for her and her family before Jericho was burned to the ground.

Rahab and her family lived with the Israelites after that. Eventually, Rahab married an Israelite named Salmon. She became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth, as told in the book of Ruth. Through their child, she became part of the very lineage of God’s only Son.

Who would have thought that a prostitute could become the protector of God’s people?

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.

—Maya Angelou