Joshua 2:8-11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Before they were laid down To sleep, as they intended. She came up unto them Having got clear of the officers, to the roof of the house, where they lay hid. Here she informs them, 1st, That the report of the great things God had done for them had reached Jericho. Not only that they had had an account of their late victories, obtained over the Amorites in the neighbouring country, on the other side the river; but that their miraculous deliverance out of Egypt, and passage through the Red sea, which had taken place at a great distance, and forty years ago, were remembered and spoken of afresh in Jericho, to the amazement of every body. 2d, She tells them what impressions the tidings of these things had made upon the Canaanites; your terror is fallen, upon us, Joshua 2:9. Our hearts did melt, Joshua 2:11. If she kept a public house, that might have given her an opportunity of understanding the sense of various companies, and of travellers from other parts of the country; so that they could not have known this any way better than by her information; and it would greatly encourage Joshua and Israel to hear how their enemies were dispirited and cast down; especially as this was the accomplishment of a promise God had made them, that he would lay the fear and dread of them upon all this land, (Deuteronomy 9:25,) and so it would be an earnest of the accomplishment of all his other promises to them. 3d, She hereupon makes profession of her faith in God, and his promise; and perhaps there was not found so great faith, (all things considered,) no, not in Israel, as in this woman of Canaan. First, She believes God's power and dominion over all the world, Joshua 2:11. Jehovah your God Whom you worship and call upon, is so far above all gods that he is the only true God; for he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath, and is served by all the hosts of both. Secondly, She believes his promise to his people Israel, Joshua 2:9; I know that the Lord hath given you the land The king of Jericho had heard as much as she had of the great things God had done for Israel, yet he cannot infer from thence that the Lord had given them this land; but resolves to hold it out against them to the last extremity. For the most powerful means of conviction will not avail when despite is done to the Spirit of grace, and his influences are quenched or resisted. But Rahab the harlot, who had only heard of the wonders God had wrought, speaks with more assurance of the truth of the promise made to the fathers than all the elders of Israel had done, who were eye-witnesses of those wonders, many of whom perished through unbelief of this promise. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed: so Rahab did. O woman, great is thy faith! Let those who ask, “On what principle she could receive into her house the known enemies of her country, conceal them from the searchers, and dismiss them in safety?” consider this her faith, and the foundation on which it was built, and they will be at no loss for an answer.