Joshua chapter 2

After reading chapter 2:

*Here we have the famous story of Rahab. Joshua secretly spent two spies to Jericho to look over the land, presumably in preparation to attack. The spies lodged in the house of a woman named Rahab, who was a prostitute or an innkeeper, depending on your source. Of course she could have been both. The king of Jericho found out about the spies and sent some men to Rahab's house to tell her to send them out. She lied and said they had left and she didn't know which way they went, but she had really hidden them on the roof under some stalks of flax. So the men went on a wild goose chase after the spies and got shut out of the city because it was after dusk, when the gates were shut.

*Before the spies went to sleep, Rahab went up to the roof to tell them that the people of Jericho had heard the stories about Yahweh, the Israelites, and their conquests. The people of Jericho were afraid. They believed that Yahweh was the almighty God over heaven and earth. Rahab asked the spies to swear to be kind to her and her family and spare them from death,  because she was kind to them. The spies promised to spare their lives after the conquest of Jericho. This is in spite of the fact that back in Deuteronomy 20  the Israelites were told not to spare anything that had the breath of life when they conquered the land that they were going to live in.

*Rahab then let the spies go out her window on a red cord, because her house was part of the city wall. The spies were to hide for three days until their pursuers had come back without them. The men told Rahab that they would keep their promise if she and her family would stay in the house during the battle and if a red cord was hung in her window as a sign to the Israelites. She was also bound to secrecy. So, they left and she tied the red cord to the window. The men hid for three days, then went back to Joshua and told him everything that had happened.

*My study bible says the Scarlett cord was a symbolic equivalent to  blood on the doorpost at passover. Death would not visit her house if it was there.