CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 2:14. Our life for yours] The sentiment is, “If we fail to regard your lives as sacred, may God so fail to think of ours.” It became afterwards a common form of oath in Israel. (Cf. Ruth 1:17; 1 Samuel 3:17; 1 Samuel 25:22; 1 Kings 19:2, etc.)
Joshua 2:16. Get you to the mountain] “Probably the cavernous mountain to the north of Jericho, which the Arabs now call Kuruntul” (F. R. Fay).
Joshua 2:18. This scarlet thread] This crimson cord. The dye is supposed to have been made from the larvæ of the cochineal insect, called in Arabic “kermes,” or crimson.
Joshua 2:19. His blood be upon us] A common form of adjuration (Ezekiel 33:4; Matthew 27:25, etc.).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 2:14-21
SOCIAL INTEGRITY AND THE PUBLIC FAITH
Perhaps no one knows the value of integrity better than those who abuse it. Just as the great are valued after their death, and just as we prize our mercies when they have departed from us, so they who have forfeited their truthfulness have a keen appreciation of its worth. It is not a little suggestive that this woman who has just told a lie to shield the spies, proceeds immediately to ask an oath from them, wherein she and her family may find some assurance of salvation. Probably the cruelties attendant on the worship of Baal, and the lewd rites connected with the service of Ashtoreth, had so far debased the public conscience of the Canaanites generally, that Rahab had become familiar with both deceit and its consequences in many forms. She proves herself an adept in deceiving others, and then asks a solemn covenant to protect herself from similar deception. This is ever the way where truth is lightly esteemed; they who think that there is little harm in telling lies, ever confess the measure of their wickedness by the suspicions and precautions in which they endeavour to shield themselves from the deceit of others. The distrust of a liar is a sort of habitual confession, “If every one were as wicked as I am, life would have no securities, and would become unbearable.” Thus, ever, “out of its own mouth” the judgment of sin is spoken.
I. The importance of public integrity. It is a national calamity when a nation is not believed. When the policy of a government is made up of diplomacy and subtlety and acts of small cleverness, the policy is ruinous; it may be dignified by the name of ‘statesmanship,” but the name can only make the ruin greater by deferring it, through a temporary concealment. A good label will not alter the contents of a poison-bottle, nor can a promising name keep a rotten vessel afloat through a storm. One Machiavel is not only enough to pass a name into a proverb, and to introduce a new set of words into language; he is also enough to curse a country for generations, till some succeeding Garibaldis, through self-denying and disinterested integrity, shall, notwithstanding mistakes, do a little to restore the public faith. It was a terrible verdict for Crete, when “their own poet,” Epimenides, wrote, “Liars and sluggish gluttons, savage beasts, the Cretans are,” and when an apostle gave the sentiment the fearful prominence of a Scripture record, in which the nations still read, “The Cretans are alway liars.” The commercial world could not go on for a month, if “credit” were not maintained. There are few pulpits where the relation of truth to prosperity is preached as it is “on ‘Change.” He who does anything to lessen the faith of men in each other, does just so much to ruin them for all prosperity in the things of this life and the next. Probably one or two of our own countrymen in high places, during the last quarter of a century, have done sufficient to lower the tone of the public conscience manifestly and appreciably for a long while to come. When falsehoods are repeatedly told, which depend on a sufficient amount of grave impudence and effrontery in the teller to provoke the laughter of the hearers, it is perfectly well understood that the laughter makes the audience in some measure participators in the untruth, and that rebuke is silenced in its very beginnings. Thus it has got to be known in some quarters, that a great liar need only have an equivalent impudence and gravity, to be heard and received as though he were only a wit, and no liar at all. This flippancy of untruth, practised by anybody, is an incalculable wrong to everybody, and as such it should be resented.
II. The culture of the public conscience.
1. These spies were most careful not to make a promise which they could not keep. They held Rahab bound by several conditions. (a) They would not be responsible, unless she bound the sign of the crimson cord in the window. As God Himself had once bidden the Israelites to mark their houses, so that the destroying angel might pass them by, in like manner this woman is to distinguish her house from the abodes of those who were delivered over to destruction. (b) The spies covenanted that they would be guiltless of the blood of any of this family who might be slain out of the house. Any one might say, “I am of Rahab’s family;” nothing would avail, but to be in the covenanted dwelling-place. (c) The spies would be blameless, unless Rahab kept the oath a secret. Let her once betray that, and all Jericho might bind its windows with crimson cord.
2. These two spies were representative men, and it was therefore most important that the promise should be made carefully. (a) Joshua was held bound by the word of these men. They were his servants. (b) All Israel was bound by their word. The men represented the nation. (c) Even God graciously condescended to recognise the promise of the spies as His own bond. While almost all of the wall of the city seems to have fallen, the part on which Rahab’s house stood was safely preserved (chap. Joshua 6:22-23). Had this one promise to a Canaanite been broken, the good faith of Israel would have been despised among the idolaters, wherever it had become known; added to this, the Israelites themselves would have been harmed. These men who were sent to spy out the land cultivate a conscience void of offence, Joshua and Israel support them, and the Divine seal is set to this care of a truthful spirit. The Divine teaching of the O. T. in these early times is most emphatic in the stress which it lays on truthfulness. No one can carefully read of the solemn tokens which God gives with His own covenants, and the solemn charges which are given in connection with vows, oaths, and all forms of promise made by men, without being made to feel that all lying and deceit are hateful to God. Promises were, in every case, to be made with the utmost care, and when once given, to be most sacredly kept.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 2:14.—THE SELF-PRODUCING POWER OF PIETY.
In the record given of the creation we read of the tree “whose seed was in itself.” All life tends to spontaneous increase. It is ever thus with the life of God in a human heart. Of each grace it may be said, “Its seed is within itself.”
I. Mercy begets mercy. “Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.” Rahab had risked her life for the spies, and now they readily respond, “Our life for yours,” or literally,” Let our soul be to die instead of you.”
II. Faith stimulates faith. Rahab had said, “I know that the Lord hath given you the land.” Under her influence the spies have insensibly and more than ever come to regard this as a truth; thus they answer, “When the Lord hath given us the land.”
III. Kindness and truth reproduce themselves in kind. “We will deal,” etc. Rahab, though false to some, had been kind and true to them, and nothing of her good words falls to the ground.
Joshua 2:18. It seems necessary to bear in mind, when reading this verse, that fanciful interpretations of Scripture may be no part of the teaching of God. Any quantity of imaginative nonsense has been written on the incidents of this chapter, and particularly of this red cord. Thus Lyra, who is followed by Mayer, and partly by some others, found here, that “by Rahab is meant the church of the Gentiles; by the two spies, the sending forth of the apostles two and two; by Jericho, the mutable moon; by the king of Jericho, the devil; by the scarlet red cord there is figured out the blood of Christ,” etc., and ad lib. Can it be seriously thought that God ever meant to teach this, or anything like it? Ought we not to ask with some anxiety if we can teach as Divine truth things of this character, without grave harm to many who hear us? The maxim of Cecil is a good rule for us all—“The meaning of Scripture is the word of God.” Nothing else ever was, ever is, or ever will be.