Catholic Commentary
The Spies Enter Jericho and Rahab Hides Them
1Joshua the son of Nun secretly sent two men out of Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, including Jericho.” They went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and slept there.2The king of Jericho was told, “Behold, men of the children of Israel came in here tonight to spy out the land.”3Jericho’s king sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered into your house; for they have come to spy out all the land.”4The woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I didn’t know where they came from.5About the time of the shutting of the gate, when it was dark, the men went out. Where the men went, I don’t know. Pursue them quickly. You may catch up with them.”6But she had brought them up to the roof, and hidden them under the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof.7The men pursued them along the way to the fords of the Jordan River. As soon as those who pursued them had gone out, they shut the gate.
Joshua 2:1–7 describes Joshua's dispatch of two spies from Shittim to reconnoiter Jericho, who lodge with Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute. When the king's messengers demand she produce them, Rahab hides the men on her roof under flax and deceives the authorities about their whereabouts, enabling their escape while the pursuers search futilely toward the Jordan fords.
A prostitute risks everything to hide God's spies under drying flax, and God responds by making her an ancestor of Jesus — proving that no one is beyond salvation or too disreputable for divine purpose.
Commentary
Joshua 2:1 — The Mission Begins in Shittim Joshua sends the spies "secretly" (Hebrew: ḥeresh), indicating strategic prudence rather than faithlessness — a marked contrast to the disastrous public reconnaissance of Numbers 13–14, which ended in Israel's forty-year exile in the wilderness. Shittim (Abel-Shittim) was Israel's final encampment east of the Jordan, the same location where Israel had fallen into the sin of Baal-Peor (Numbers 25). The spies' destination is Jericho, the first fortified city standing between Israel and the Promised Land, symbolically the gateway to the inheritance God had sworn to Abraham. That the men enter "the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab" is not incidental. The Hebrew zonah (prostitute) is unambiguous, and most ancient commentators accept it literally. Her occupation signals her outsider status — she is among the most marginalized of Canaanites, and yet she becomes the instrument of divine providence. Her name, Raḥab, meaning "wide" or "broad," may carry connotations of generosity and openness. They "slept there" — the Hebrew simply means they lodged — emphasizing shelter, not sin.
Joshua 2:2 — The King Is Informed The intelligence network of Jericho is swift. The king is told that Israelite men have entered the city "tonight," suggesting the spies arrived under cover of darkness. That news reaches the king so rapidly underlines both the pervasive fear Israel's reputation had already inspired (confirmed by Rahab herself in verses 9–11) and the danger the spies face. The city is on high alert.
Joshua 2:3 — The Royal Command The king sends a direct order to Rahab to produce the men. She is addressed personally, indicating she was known to the authorities — perhaps her house was near the city wall (v. 15) and frequented by officials, making her an ironic nexus of political intelligence. The king frames the spies as a threat to "all the land," not just Jericho, revealing the Canaanite awareness that Israel's ambitions were comprehensive.
Verses 4–5 — Rahab's Calculated Deception Rahab's lie to the king's messengers has generated centuries of moral and theological debate. She does not merely deflect; she actively deceives: "I didn't know where they came from," and "where the men went, I don't know." The Church Fathers were divided. St. Augustine (Against Lying, ch. 15) held that her lie was sinful, though her faith and mercy were praiseworthy. St. John Chrysostom and St. Jerome were more sympathetic, seeing her as acting from a nascent faith under moral duress. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§2483–2484) teaches that lying is intrinsically disordered, yet the tradition also acknowledges that moral culpability is diminished by ignorance and duress. Crucially, the inspired text itself never condemns Rahab for this act; on the contrary, the New Testament praises her specifically for receiving the spies and acting on her faith (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25). The canonical weight of Scripture's silence on her lie, combined with its celebration of her faith, invites a nuanced pastoral reading.
Joshua 2:6 — Hidden Under the Flax The detail that Rahab conceals the men "under the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof" is historically precise: flax was harvested in the spring and spread on flat rooftops to dry before being woven into linen — a detail that grounds the narrative in genuine Canaanite agricultural practice and corroborates its historical texture. Typologically, the flax is deeply significant: from it, linen is woven, and linen in Scripture is associated with purity, priesthood, and the resurrection (the linen burial cloths of Jesus, John 20:5–7). The concealment under raw flax prefigures hiddenness in God — the life of grace unseen by the hostile world.
Joshua 2:7 — The Gate Is Shut The soldiers rush to the fords of the Jordan, the logical escape route. The closing of the gate is a detail of great narrative irony: the very gate that should have trapped the spies now seals in their pursuers' futile search. The shut gate also anticipates the city's final destruction — when Jericho's gates open again, it will be to judgment (Joshua 6). Meanwhile, the spies lie still and safe on Rahab's roof, hidden by a woman the world had already discarded.
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition sees Rahab as one of Scripture's most luminous typological figures, and the Fathers returned to her repeatedly. Origen (Homilies on Joshua, Hom. 3) offers the fullest patristic treatment: he reads Rahab's scarlet cord (Joshua 2:18) — which has its roots in this very act of sheltering the spies — as a type of the blood of Christ. Just as the Israelites in Egypt were saved by blood on their doorposts (Exodus 12), and just as the crimson thread identifies Rahab's household for salvation, so the Blood of the Redeemer marks the Church for eternal life. For Origen, Rahab's house prefigures the Church herself: only those within it are saved from the judgment that falls on the surrounding city.
St. Clement of Rome (1 Clement 12) is perhaps the earliest to celebrate Rahab, calling her faith and hospitality a model for the whole Church. He connects her scarlet thread explicitly to the blood of redemption, anticipating later Christological exegesis.
Rahab's inclusion in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5 — "Boaz the father of Obed by Rahab") is of immense theological weight from a Catholic standpoint. The God of the covenant does not merely save Rahab; He incorporates her into the very lineage of the Incarnation. This is consistent with the Catholic understanding of grace as transformative and elevating, not merely forensic. A Canaanite woman of ill-repute becomes, by faith, an ancestress of the Savior — a datum that the Catechism (§674) and the theology of the sensus plenior of Scripture illuminate as a foretaste of the universal salvific will of God (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4).
The Magisterium's teaching on the universal call to holiness (Lumen Gentium, §11, 39–42) finds in Rahab a patron: no social station, no history of sin, no ethnicity places one beyond the reach of divine election. Her story is a concrete enactment of what the Church teaches about grace preceding merit.
For Today
Rahab confronts a comfortable Catholic with a challenging question: do I extend shelter and protection to those the surrounding culture considers expendable, dangerous, or disreputable — even at personal cost? Her hospitality was not safe or respectable. She received strangers into her home at risk to her life, acting on a faith that was still forming, with incomplete knowledge of the God she was beginning to trust.
Contemporary Catholics face analogous moments of costly hospitality: welcoming the immigrant, advocating for the wrongly accused, standing with the marginalized when institutions demand conformity and silence. Rahab also models the spirituality of hiddenness — her act of faith was invisible to the world, performed under a pile of flax on a rooftop. Much genuine Christian witness is similarly hidden: prayers for enemies, small acts of protection, the quiet refusal to betray the vulnerable.
Finally, Rahab is a powerful patron for those who feel their past disqualifies them from God's purposes. The Church's tradition insists that God not only forgives but enlists — and that the most unexpected people are often placed at the most strategic doors of history.
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