Rahab's Confession
Joshua 2:8-10a & 11b
Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, … for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”
To all the skeptics of Christianity who claim that Israel’s advance into Canaan was a genocidal crime against humanity, who falsely imagine that these affluent peoples suddenly, without warning, were mercilessly overtaken by the wrecking ball of divine fury the way, say, those people of Pompeii were instantly petrified during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Rahab’s voice cries out from the other side of the wall as it were, telling the harder truth of the matter. And the truth from her eyewitness account is that from the moment God’s people stepped foot on the sandy banks of the Red Sea opposite Egypt, word spread like wildfire. Spies from Canaan onward were sent to watch and give word. They must’ve come back to their respective tribal lords in terror, saying, “My lord, the Jews have just drowned Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea! What do we do?!” To which the kings of earth responded, “We defy the God of Israel!” Later on down the road, after Moses defeated Og and overtook Og’s great city, these same spies rushed back to those same lords with even greater earnest than before, saying, “My lord, Moses and his God has defeated Og as well! They’re getting closer and closer! What do we do now?!” To which the kings of earth replied with even firmer resolve, “We defy the God of Israel!” See, friend, that’s the part that skeptics won’t admit about the history of Israel’s wars, because it’s the part they won’t admit about their own hearts.
Make no mistake, friend: whether Rahab is hanged as a traitor by a Jericho mob in the next chapter of the story or delivered as a heroine by Joshua, she’ll be counted among the saints when the roll is called up yonder.