CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 2:9. Your terror is fallen upon us] As Moses had predicted forty years before; Exodus 15:15.
Joshua 2:12. Give me a true token] Rahab asks them to enter into solemn covenant with her, and to establish something as the usual token or sign. The sign of the covenant in this case was the scarlet cord named in Joshua 2:18.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 2:8-13
PHASES OF HUMAN FAITH AND DIVINE MERCY
Notwithstanding the labours of such writers as Josephus, the Jewish Rabbins, and Adam Clarke, who from worthy motives have tried to shew that Rahab was merely an innkeeper, or hostess, there can be no doubt to most people that she was the abandoned woman which our version declares her to have been. Kitto summarises the argument nearly as follows:—The balance of opinion among scholars supports our translation; the Septuagint renders the Hebrew word by an expression which all agree means “a harlot;” the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of James follow the Septuagint; Rahab, who is so careful about the saving of her relatives, says no word as to her husband or children; after her settlement among the Israelites she married Salmon, a Jewish prince; and, finally, there are no such persons as “hostesses” in the East. Volney says, “There are no inns anywhere, but the cities and commonly the villages have a large building called a khan or caravanserai, which serves as an asylum for all travellers. The keeper of this khan gives the traveller his key and a mat, and he provides himself the rest.” It is important, as it affects the gracious teaching of the Scriptures, that Rahab’s character be taken as it is set before us.
I. Some phases of this woman’s faith.
1. It seems, at the stage where the N. T. commends it, to have been only the faith of fear. It sprang from her terror (Joshua 2:9-11). The strange and unprecedented passage of the Red Sea had appalled the Canaanites. The overthrow of Sihon and Og had alarmed them no less. The Amorites were a very powerful and warlike race. They had overcome the Rephaims or giants (Deuteronomy 2:20-21); they had driven out the Ammonites and Moabites. A contest with Sihon, therefore, was a terrible thing for Israel; but they had Ebenezers of mercy even then behind them, Moses with them, and God and His word for all the conflicts before them. The Amorites were utterly defeated, and their king slain. The kingdom of Og was even more formidable. The territory was far larger, the people very warlike, their king a giant, and their land crowded with fortified cities. For the armour of those days the very houses must have been as forts; they were built, we are told, of huge basalt rocks, having the walls, in some cases, four feet thick, and thick stone slabs, swinging upon pivots in sockets, for doors. But the battle of Edrei was decisive; Og was slain, as Sihon had been, and his forces were utterly routed. No wonder that the fear of the Lord fell on the Canaanites on the western side of the river. No wonder that the inhabitants of Jericho felt their hearts melting for fear. With Rahab’s fear there came something more; she was convinced that the God of Israel was “God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.” Her fear led her to faith, and her faith to fear still more. Is such faith “saving faith”? Yes, if you follow it up, and no amount of faith will save any one without. See how God has often aimed at the salvation of men by beginning with their fears. What else but leading men to faith through fear was God’s work through Elijah on Carmel, or through Jonah at Nineveh? What else had been God’s work with these Israelites and their fathers in Egypt and the wilderness? The ten plagues, the miracle at the Red Sea, the judgment on Korah and his followers, the fiery serpents, and many other wonders were designed to work awe in the minds of the Israelites, and, with awe, belief. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” in these days of the gospel, as well as in those days of old. It does not matter how we begin to be Christians, if we only go on, and keep on. What men want is to be made to think; thought on God will soon lead to decision, let the thinking begin how it may. If a sleeper awake at night in a burning house, it is of no consequence whether he sees the fire, smells it, tastes the disagreeable smoke, feels the hot air, hears the roaring of the flames within, or earnest voices calling “fire” from without. The one thing for safety is to know that there is fire, and it does not matter at all by which of the senses it was first apprehended. Let no one say, “I am so full of fears; I cannot be saved:” it is just as well for safety that we apprehend God through fear as through any other faculty or power of our being. After all, there may be more faith in fear than many think there is. No man should expect to begin a Christian life in songs of rich experience. If a rich man were to adopt a ragged child from the streets, the joys of childhood would not come at once. At first there would be timidity and pain at all the new grandeur; it could be only when the child got to feel it was really loved that it would gradually come into the child-feeling, and begin to store up filial experiences. The twenty-third Psalm was not written as the beginning of David’s piety. Peter wrote, “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious,” but he had to find all that out by a long, a varied, and often a most humiliating experience. It was only as an old man, who had learned how Christ had prayed that Satan might not “sift him as wheat,” how Christ had often forgiven him, often encouraged him, and always loved him, that Peter could say, “He is precious.” Go on with even the faith of fear; that also leads to an inheritance in the land.
2. Rahab’s faith was mixed with absolute sin. I do not know if she was immoral at the time when the spies came; many good people say she was not, trying to prove the next best thing possible. Why should we go so far about to prove this sinner almost a saint, in order to make her fit to be saved? Perhaps it would be better to take her for just what Scripture calls her. It is much more simple, more encouraging to many, and certainly more sensible. If the Saviour could say to the Pharisees, “The thieves and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” we shall do very little, excepting that we shall lower the grace of the gospel, by saying here of Rahab that she “had formerly been of ill fame, the reproach of which stuck to her name, though of late she had repented and reformed.” Any way, Rahab lied. Not a few good men, with laudable motives, doubtless, but with most unwise zeal, have tried to justify or excuse even this. Under no circumstances whatever can a lie be anything but sin. The morality of the great epic poet of the Greeks, call him a heathen though we may, is blessedly better than some of the casuistry which Christian men have written on this. Homer said bluntly,—
“My soul detests him as the gates of hell,
Who knows the truth, and dares a falsehood tell.”
With equal firmness and excellent definition good George Herbert also wrote,—
“Lie not; but let thy heart be true to God;
Thy tongue to it, thy actions to them both.
Dare to be true! nothing can need a lie;
The fault that needs it most grows two thereby.”
Some who begin to serve God are discouraged when they find sin mixed with their faith. Sin cannot make us too much distrust ourselves, but no sin that has penitence should lead to distrust of God.
3. As far as Rahab’s faith had knowledge, it also had works. James seizes on that feature. The woman hid the servants of God. She confessed her faith freely, and her confession is very wonderful. No amount of faith can be of any use without works. We may believe as much as the angel Gabriel, but not to work is to sin against all the additional light which goes with our faith. God garners faith in fruit, not faith in blossom.
4. Rahab believed in God in the midst of unbelief. She alone, in Jericho and all Canaan, seems at this time to have accepted Israel’s God for her God. It is all very well and sufficiently easy to believe what every one else accepts; can we dare to believe God when alone? Can we believe when all the companions of our daily life scoff at us? Can we hold our faith singly about particular truths or principles?
5. Rahab’s faith went with compassion and love. She had thought for the safety of her relatives. If we are doing nothing to save others, let us remember that no one can fill our place. No one else has our particular mind, or temperament, or experiences, or opportunities.
6. Rahab’s faith was only in God. She believed in a living being of great power, who loved the Israelites, and helped them so that none could stand against them. She was absolutely without any systematic creed. Creeds are good so far as we must have them, but we had better leave them to come to us, and not go in search of them. Max Müller has pointed out that though “nature is incapable of progress or improvement,” when men become familiar with any science they begin to classify its features. So the botanist began in time to classify flowers; and when men began to study language, that too entered upon its “classificatory stage.” Classification is the necessary outcome of knowledge. Men accumulate items of knowledge, and then, in order to remember them better, and understand them more thoroughly, they formulate and arrange them. A Christian with much experience and many thoughts of God must have a creed; he cannot help it; it is the necessary outcome of growth. But it is unwise for anxious souls seeking Jesus Christ as their Saviour to burden and perplex themselves with theology. Like Rahab, let them simply believe in Him who has helped so many of His people to such mighty victories.
II. Some forms of Divine mercy.
1. God’s mercy tends to strengthen faith from its very beginnings to its crisis. This woman had heard of the Red Sea, of the overthrow of Sihon and Og, and she believed. After her confession she is strengthened right up to the time of trial. (a) The Jordan divides; while the hearts of her neighbours became still more “as water,” how Rahab must have been confirmed in the choice she had made! (b) Then here was this strange procession of this vast army, marching round Jericho, for six days, once a day Not a shout was to be heard; the only noise was from those seven rams’ horns, which blew out their strange notice just in front of the ark, which was the symbol of religion and of God’s presence. How unlike ordinary fighting it must have seemed! Taken in connection with the circumcision and passover hard by at Gilgal, how superhuman the aspect of the whole campaign must have become! Every movement would be saying to Rahab, “The God of heaven and earth is undertaking all.” Surely the very strangeness of the siege, so terrifying to the Canaanites, would have tended to increase her faith. (c) On the seventh day, at the close of the seventh march round the city, each of the last six of which had been indicating the coming crisis, the people shouted, and the wall fell down flat, and the Israelites went up “every man straight before him into the city.” It seems as though the wall fell down entirely round the city, so that the men who surrounded the city had not to walk some one way and some another to various breaches, but there was an open path before them all. We find, however, that Rahab’s house was upon or against the wall, and yet that fell not; for the spies went in, and brought her and her family out in safety. Here, then, in the very crisis of trial, God gave this woman a sign which seemed to say within her, “Israel has covenanted with me, and, lo, the God of Israel makes the covenant of His people His own bond also!” All the wall, or much of it, had fallen; her house stood firmly. Thus from its beginning to its greatest ordeal does God’s mercy graciously provide means to sustain and strengthen this woman’s faith. Is Divine mercy less careful for us? No; to us all, if we will only look, God gives increasing light. “The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
2. God’s mercy is very pitiful in its estimate of human surroundings. Only this woman’s faith is spoken of in the N. T.; nothing whatever is said of her lie; and while she is called a harlot, there is no upbraiding of her because of past sin. The good is proclaimed with honour; the evil is recognised, but the very terms in which it is named seem to treat it as forgiven. Thus God “hides His face” from our transgressions, and our sin He “covers.”
3. God’s mercy is seen giving exceptional faith conspicuous honour. (a) This woman marries a prince in Israel; (b) becomes a progenitor of our Lord; (c) and has most honourable mention in the New Testament. Christ comes through all sorts of characters, and through all ranks of society; some ancestors are kings, and some are the poor. He seems to say by the very manner of His coming that He appears on earth for all sorts of sinners, and for all ranks and conditions of men. It is significant, too, that Christ’s parents—the last in the line of genealogy—are poor, as though even the birth of the Saviour should lay its emphasis on the after word, “To the poor the gospel is preached.” When sinful Rahab stands in the line of so much honour, faith in any one may well anticipate “the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”
4. God’s mercy is seen saving “all them that believe,” even though faith may be poor and small. Rahab had only the faith of fear, and she and her family were delivered from death; doubtless the wonders of God’s mercy, when Jericho fell, led her into a larger trust and a holier life. We cannot but look on her as in heaven, when we see her so commended in the New Testament. So does God encourage even fear, and so does He teach our feeble faith to hope in His mercy.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 2:8-12. THE DIFFERING MEASURES OF LIFE’S INFLUENCE ON MEN.
“I know that the Lord” (Joshua 2:9); “WE have heard how the Lord” (Joshua 2:10). “WE heard, and OUR heart did melt” (Joshua 2:11). “Now therefore I pray you” (Joshua 2:12). All had heard the same things, and all feared; only one prayed, and only one believed and worked the works of faith.
I. There are multitudes who hear of the Lord, but the voice of the Lord is one voice to them all. Some men hear or see more of the Lord’s deeds than others, but, substantially, the deeds all “speak the same thing.” There are no contradictions; the works and words are all in one direction.
1. The teachings of NATURE are substantially the same everywhere. “The testimony of the rocks” is one testimony to all who read it aright. Each flower and blade of grass and tree alike tells of creative wisdom, power, and love. The voice is the same in all places. So it is of the “great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable.” “The heavens declare the glory of God.… There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line [or teaching] is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world;” and the words are the same wherever men will listen to them and search out their meaning. African stars, American heavens, the Asian firmament, and the European sky, all speak in harmony. In the hymn usually attributed to Addison, but recently claimed, and apparently with good reason, as Andrew Marvell’s, we sing—
“The spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim;”
and they proclaim Him without contradiction, and, unlike men, without controversy. Law everywhere preaches the same thing about fire and water, about heat and actinism and colour, about chemical properties and mechanical appliances, about obedience to its precepts on the one hand, or our transgression of them on the other.
2. The teachings of Providence have been everywhere similar. In all times the wicked have often been found to “flourish like a green bay tree,” and the true-hearted have often been “an afflicted and poor people;” yet the industrious and the wise have ever had their reward. Sudden accidents and calamities have been the heritage of all the ages. Similar weaknesses, sicknesses, diseases, bereavements, graves, have been, from the first proclaiming one providence for all times and lands.
3. The teachings of Human History are similar. Man’s sins—his wars, murders, lyings, duplicity, mere pleasure-seeking, his pride and selfishness—have always tended to degradation and misery: Man’s virtues—his sympathy, self-denial, generosity, love, meekness—have always worked peace, and brought a goodly heritage.
4. The teachings of the Human Conscience and the Heart have never materially differed. Conscience has brought fear to the wicked and peace to the pure, from the day when Adam hid himself till now. The heart that has lived merely for this world has always had its sense of emptiness. Human desires and yearnings and hopes have ever gone out to things beyond death.
5. The teachings of the Bible have ever been in one direction. The early times had not so much light as these latter days, in which God has spoken unto us by His Son, but the light has ever shewn one path, having but one kind of traveller, and one hope and end for them all.
II. When the mightier works of the Lord and His sterner words have been forced prominently on the thoughts of men, they have always tended to work fear and despondency. Now some divided sea, now the smiting of mighty kings who could have helped them, and now promises of a heritage to some one else which threatened them with dispossession, have, all through human history, made the hearts of men “to melt.” Disastrous earthquakes, the ravages of epidemic disease, appalling accidents, the threatenings of the Scripture against idolatry and all sin, have, when forced suddenly on the attention, made men’s hearts “as water.” Power, when not understood, ever works awe.
III. While the works and word of the Lord bring fear to all men at first, in some fear gives place to faith, and desire, and love. The inhabitants of Jericho all heard and trembled; only Rahab passed out of fear into faith and service. Nothing is more marked in the Bible than this differing measure of influence wrought by the same word. Whether the risen Saviour has revealed Himself to men, or Paul has preached at Athens or in his own lodging at Rome, it has ever had to be written, “And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.” How are we hearing? “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
Joshua 2:9 only.
I. The testimony of those who are weak and untaught. “I know,” said Rahab; what witness should we bear? “Much is given” to us;—education, associations, godly parents, Christian teachers, an entire gospel of mighty and merciful works.
II. The confidence of the weak and untaught. “I know,” etc. In all Rahab’s gospel there was not a single promise. She only saw two or three of the mighty acts of the Lord, yet she believed, doubting nothing. Our gospel has the cradle, the promises, the tenderness, and even the tears and the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. The encouragement given by the weak and untaught. “The Lord hath given you the land,” etc. Rahab was with these Israelites “in much assurance;” she might have no promise of her own, she would read and understand and proclaim the blessedness of theirs.
Joshua 2:10-11. COMING TO A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH.
I. The use of religious memories. The miracle of the Red Sea had taken place forty years before. This was a period equal to half a lifetime. If living then, Rahab could have been only a child. Perhaps, to her, the miracle was only a tradition; but she thought on it, and it helped to lead her to a conclusion.
1. We want help from all the faculties of our being when we are seeking to know the Lord. Within, we have much to dim our vision: pride, self-love, and sin in many forms. Without, temptation has a thousand fair disguises, and every time we sin we hide God from our eyes. We might as well try in the same instant to look north and south, to the sky over our heads and the earth at our feet, as to seek sin and see God. To know Him, we need each power of our being for that one purpose.
2. Memory, however, is peculiarly helpful in getting this knowledge. (a) Memory brings to us life’s select teachings. We look through our family albums, and do not find there cartes in general; they are not portraits of Her Majesty’s army or navy; they are select—every face is the face of a friend. We look through our Bibles, and we have in them favourite passages which fill us with peace; and we know far better where to find our twenty-third Psalm, or our fourteenth of John, than some name in the genealogies, or some obscure incident written in the book of Chronicles. So when we look through our minds, many things are hidden by time, only select memories come up, and these, where they are religious, are the most beautiful and the most helpful. (b) Memory often brings delineations of God from the past which are both clearer and purer than our present impressions. They are pictures of our childhood, at once full of realism and full of innocence. (c) Memory might bring up, not only its visions of the past, but its reproof in the present. Rahab, and we not less, might find room to ask, “How am I, compared with my thoughts of God years ago? what has my life been since—alas! what? Have I grown in the knowledge of Him?” Memory helped her to decide in this her last opportunity; destruction soon came, suddenly as at the Sea, and these few moments with the spies were standing for her eternity. What of our moments; are they equally important? what of our memories; are we using them, while yet there is time, to help us to know Him, “whom to know is eternal life”?
II. The blessings of observation and reflection. “The two kings of the Amorites” had fallen but recently. The victories obtained over them made this woman think. Some pass through life seeing but little, and not reflecting on even that. Life is a stream which runs past them; they see its waters shimmer in the sunlight, and hear the cheerful ripple, the soft murmuring, or the ceaseless roar of its progress, but they never stoop to drink. Life carries everything past them, and brings them nothing which they make their own. Who can wonder if danger and death overtake them while yet unprepared?
III. The value of cumulative evidence and repeated emotions. The Red Sea made Rahab do nothing, the death of Sihon does not apparently move her to any works, the overthrow of Og leaves her still in Jericho; but the coming of the spies, and their conversation, added to all that went before, make her covenant for her salvation.
1. The unused evidence of life. No man can destroy this evidence. It is accumulating either to (a) gradually convince us, or to (b) finally overwhelm us.
2. The unimproved feelings of life. Joys, sorrows, fears, etc., are either exhausting and withering our hearts, and leaving them callous, or they are being treasured up and cultivated within us as the beginnings of our eternal hymn of adoration and praise.
IV. The salvation that comes of facing the whole truth, and then confessing it to others.
1. We should never conceal from ourselves our utter helplessness as against God.
2. We should never deny even to our own hearts the glory of God; (a) His sovereignty in heaven above; (b) His sovereignty in earth beneath.
3. What we acknowledge of the glory of God to ourselves, it is best to confess to His people. (a) It is God’s right. (b) His people may be able to help us. (c) Our confession may lead to our salvation.
I. Faith looking within.
1. It has self-distrust.
2. It has no rest till it secures covenanted mercy.
3. Though it be faith, it yet needs some help from signs—“Give me a true token.” Those who feel most sincerely how blessed it is to believe when they have not seen, cling, nevertheless, to that sign of the everlasting covenant, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
II. Faith looking around. Faith in God, though in a sinner like this, and in days so far back and light so feeble as hers, has ever the same tendencies.
1. It wants others to be in the covenant also.
2. It begins among its own kindred.
3. It places the life first, and makes things subordinate.
4. It not only has compassion for others, but expectation from others: “I pray you, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness.” Faith is very human in its pity and generous kindness; it is not so superhuman that it can receive harshness for gentleness without feeling wounded. Some people know very well that the faith of Christians should lead to compassion and help; they utterly forget that it is natural for even faith to be pained by ingratitude.
III. Faith looking on high.
1. It has adoration and praise for God’s power (Joshua 2:11).
2. It regards that power no longer as a terror, but a joy. Rahab wanted to get with God’s people, in order that Divine power, instead of destroying her and hers, might defend them. The truth which at first made the heart melt, became speedily its “shield and buckler.”
3. Faith has not only praise for God, and a new feeling as to His power, it has regard to the honour of His name: “Swear unto me by the Lord.”
On the passage in James 2:25, Manton gives the following very suggestive thoughts concerning the case of Rahab:—
“I. God may choose the worst of sinners. Even in a harlot faith is acceptable. II. The meanest faith must justify itself by works and gracious effects. III. Believers, though they justify their profession, are still monuments of free grace. It is Rahab the harlot, though justified by works. IV. Ordinary acts are gracious, when they flow from faith and are done in obedience. Entertainment, in such a case, is not civility, but religion. A cup of cold water in the name of a prophet is not courtesy, but duty, and shall not lose its reward. A carnal man performs his religious duties for civil ends, and a godly man his civil duties for religious ends. There is no alchemy like that of grace, where brass is turned into gold, and actions of commerce are made worship. V. The great trial of faith is in actions of self-denial. Rahab preferred the will of God to the welfare of her country; Abraham the same will to the life of Isaac. A man is not discovered when God’s way and his own lie together. VI. The actions and duties of God’s children are usually blemished with some notable defect. Rahab’s entertainment was associated with Rahab’s lie; Moses smote the rock twice, and with faith mixed anger. Thus we still plough with an ox and an ass in the best duties. VII. God hideth His eyes from the evil that is in our good actions. He that drew Alexander while he had a scar upon his face, drew him with his finger upon the scar: God putteth the finger of mercy upon our scars. Job curseth the day of his birth; it is simply written, ‘Ye have heard of the patience of Job.’ How unlike are wicked men to the Lord; with them one blemish is enough to stain much glory, but with Him a little faith and a few works are thrown into everlasting honour.”