Last week, we looked at the big picture of the conquest of the city of Jericho, recorded in Joshua chapter 6. Today, I want to focus on the small picture of one of the Canaanite residents of that city.
What comes to mind when I mention the character Bianca in Othello, Belle in Gone with the Wind, Fantine in Les Miserable, Satine in Moulin Rouge, and Vivian in Pretty Woman?
All are fictional examples of female “sex workers” who happen to possess profound humanity, moral complexity, and often greater integrity than many of the more “respectable” characters around them. Rahab, the heroine of the Book of Joshua, is another such woman. When we first encounter Rahab, she is not the sort of person we might expect to become a hero of faith.
She is not an Israelite, a prophet or a priest. She is not a leader. She lives in Jericho, a pagan city standing in the way of Israel’s advance into the land God had promised to Abraham. Scripture introduces her with the stark defining label of “prostitute” (v. 1). In the ancient world, as in our world, prostitution arose for various reasons. Many women who lacked the protection of a husband had few economic opportunities, and prostitution was a means of survival.
We know nothing of the circumstances that led Rahab into this life. What we do know is that she lived in a city under threat. She lived with uncertainty. She lived with the knowledge that her future was fragile. And she inhabited the edges of respectable society. By every conventional measure, she was far removed from the covenant people of Israel and the trajectory of their destiny.
Yet Rahab’s story reminds us that God sees hope and honour where humans see shame and failure. We aren’t told the name of the king of Jericho (vv. 2f), But we know the name of one of the city’s prostitutes.
Along with everyone in the city, Rahab was marked for destruction (Jos 6:17-21), but through her shrewd actions, her decision to lie to the king’s agents, and her astonishing knowledge about God and what was about to happen to the cities of Canaan, she and her family are spared death (see Jos 6:17, 22, 25).
The story begins when Joshua sends two spies into Jericho. They come to Rahab’s humble dwelling, in the liminal space of the city wall. When the king of Jericho learns that Israelite spies have entered the city, he sends messengers demanding that Rahab surrender them.
Instead, she hides the spies on her roof beneath stalks of flax drying in the sun. This places Rahab in great danger. If her treachery is discovered, she could be executed. Yet she aligns herself with Israel, because she has come to understand something astonishing about their destiny and their theology.
Look closely at verses 8-14. Rahab is harbouring enemies of the state. She has chosen to lie to her own people in order to protect them. Both of these actions are curious, especially for someone in her position.
And then she lifts the curtain and explains her actions. She says to the spies, “I know that the Lord has given you the land” (v. 9a), and recalls several great moments of victory in Israel’s past, matters of public knowledge and cause for concern in Jericho (v. 10).
Then Rahab moves from public knowledge to personal conviction. She declares, “The Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below” (v. 11b), rejecting the polytheism of her people and affirming the universality, transcendence and sovereignty of the God of Israel.
In the events that follow, resulting in the destruction of Jericho and the salvation of Rahab and her entire family, we see Rahab’s personal trust in God in the face of existential threat from Israeli soldiers. Informed by public knowledge about God, and strengthened by personal convictions about God, she puts her life in their hands and is – almost miraculously – welcomed into the community of faith (Jos 6:25).
The Book of Joshua highlights Rahab’s courage, hospitality, faith, trust, and willingness to take her place with the people of the God of Israel. Her story reminds us that the grace of God reaches out every day to embrace people on the margins, in the liminal spaces, on the edges of ordinary life, reassuring them that they are known and loved, and offering them a secure identity and an honoured place in the community of faith.
And that is not where Rachel’s story ends. Joshua 2:24 suggests that Rahab’s testimony to the spies may have given Joshua the courage to press on with the conquest of Canaan. One extrabiblical Jewish tradition has her marrying Joshua, echoing the biblical story of Moses who married the daughter of Jethro, a priest of the Canaanite tribe of Midian (Ex 3:1; 4:18).
The Gospel of Matthew has Rahab as the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz, one of only five women in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. Boaz married Ruth, a Moabite woman, and their great-grandson was King David (Mt 1:5f). The author of the Letter to the Hebrews cites Rahab as an example of faith worth emulating (Heb 11:31). The Letter of James highlights the fact that Rahab demonstrated her faith by her good works (Jas 2:25).
It’s a wonderful true story with a happy ending for Rahab and her family. But there is more for us to learn as we reflect on it.
Joshua 2 is a reminder of God’s care for the “outsider,” the marginalised, the one who is different from the crowd, the one who doesn’t fit in. It is a reminder of the responsibility of God’s people to reflect that core principle of grace by extending generous hospitality to those who are, for various reasons, not “insiders.”
The imperative to care for “the least of these” is woven through Holy Scripture. For Israel, abuse of foreigners was forbidden (Ex 22:21). Part of their produce was to be tithed and stored to provide for the needs of foreigners among them (Dt 14:29). Some produce was to be intentionally left in the fields for gleaners (Dt 24:19; cf Ruth 2:2f, 17f). Social welfare provisions extended to cover the rights of foreigners (Dt 24:14, 17).
Israel was not intended to be a separate community isolated from the nations. The opposite was true: people from many lands were welcome to dwell in her midst and learn about God and God’s ways. As I said earlier, Moses’s wife was a Midianite. Caleb, one of the twelve spies (Num 13:1-33) and second-in-command to Joshua, was a Kenizzite, a non-Israelite branch of the Edomite clan that came to be recognised as part of the tribe of Judah (Jos 14:14). Caleb’s son-in-law Othniel, the very first of Israel’s judges, was also a Kenizzite (Jdg 3:9-11); his godly wisdom and courage gave Israel peace from internal and external conflict for forty years.
Over time, other groups took advantage of the volatile regional power shifts of the conquest and entered Palestine, eventually being absorbed into the structures of Israelite society. In its early form, what held these various groups together was not their ethnicity but their commitment to the Mosaic covenant, to the idea of monotheism, and to the ethics of the covenant people of God. Missiologist Roger Hedlund observes that “the incorporation of aliens into the commonwealth of Israel was an early stage in the progressive development of mission in the Bible.”[1]
At the same time, there was no imperative to make all people Jews, but to call people from all nations to enter into a living relationship with the God of Abraham. Especially beyond the borders of Israel, in the Jewish Diaspora, the conviction arose that among the nations God had appointed one nation as priests to bless the others.
We see this clearly expressed in aspirational form in Exodus 19:5-6a, where God instructs Moses at Mount Sinai: “Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.”
Mission in the Bible has two key aspects: centripetal, drawing people to the centre, to the heart of Jewish (and Christian) life; and centrifugal, reaching out, and sending out, into the wide world with the good news of the kingdom of God, and living as God’s people wherever we find ourselves.
Sadly, while God was faithful to his promises, Israel was frequently unfaithful and lost the missionary vision God initially had for them. The same opportunities and challenges, successes and failures, have been the experience of the people of God today, those who follow the way of Jesus and are committed to the global mission of God today.
Let me conclude by revisiting the story of Rahab.
If God could find Rahab in Jericho, he can find anyone. If God could welcome Rahab into his covenant community, he can welcome anyone. If God could make Rahab part of the story that led to Jesus Christ, then there is no life beyond the reach of his redeeming love.
What about you? Where do you find yourself placed this morning? What do you need to do to find your place, or resume your place, in the story of God?
Sermon 860 copyright © 2026 Rod Benson. Preached at North Rocks Community Church, Sydney, Australia, on Sunday 28 June 2026. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020).
Rev Dr Rod Benson is General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council and a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia serving at North Rocks Community Church in Sydney.
Reference
[1] Roger E. Hedlund, The Mission of the Church in the World (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 82.
Image source: AI
Taking it further…
Reflection questions
- What prompted Rahab to place her trust in the God of Israel? How does the sermon distinguish between her public knowledge about God and her personal conviction?
- How does the sermon argue that the inclusion of Rahab fits within the wider biblical story of Israel’s mission and God’s purpose for the nations? What do the ideas of “centripetal” and “centrifugal” mission mean?
- The sermon concludes by asking, “What do you need to do to find your place, or resume your place, in the story of God?” What does this question invite you to consider about your identity, calling, and relationship with God?
Application questions
- Rahab acted courageously because of her faith. Is there a situation in your life where trusting God may require a costly or courageous decision? What would faithful action look like?
- The sermon emphasises that God often works through people on the margins rather than through the powerful. How might this reshape the way you evaluate leadership, influence, and significance within the church?
- The sermon suggests that mission involves both drawing people into the life of God’s people and going out into the world to serve. Which of these dimensions is your church stronger in? What practical steps could strengthen the other dimension?
iDigress 