The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Hope” it comes from the Hebrew Word “tiqvah” which means “hope, a cord.”
Two spies sneak into Jericho, and an unlikely woman becomes the key to their survival. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Joshua 2.
Joshua secretly sends two men to spy out the land, particularly Jericho. They lodge at the house of a harlot named Rahab, but word reaches the king of Jericho, who sends men demanding she hand over these Israelite visitors. Rahab hides the spies under stalks of flax on her roof and tells the king’s messengers that the men already left, sending pursuers off on a false trail.
Rahab climbs up to the spies and confesses that “the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath,” recounting how the whole land has heard of God parting the Red Sea and Israel’s recent victories over Sihon and Og, so that “our hearts did melt” with fear. She asks the spies to show her family the same kindness she has shown them, sparing her father, mother, brothers, and sisters when Israel takes the city.
The spies agree, instructing Rahab to tie a scarlet cord, “tiqvah” in Hebrew, a word that also means hope, in her window as a sign, and to gather her family safely inside her house during the coming attack, since anyone outside her door would not be protected. Rahab lets the spies down by a rope through her window, since her house is built into the city wall, and directs them to hide in the mountains for three days until their pursuers give up searching. The spies return safely to Joshua and report confidently, “Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.”
Rahab risked everything on a single conviction, that the God of Israel was truly God, even before she had any concrete proof it would work out for her. Her scarlet cord, whose very name means hope, becomes a fitting symbol for a woman who staked her entire future on faith in a God she had only just begun to know.
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