Rahab’s story is set in the midst of a greater story, and this greater story is that of the conquest of the land. And, moreover, it’s entwined with another story which is also part of that greater story, and that is the story of the sending of the spies. Now Joshua had been commissioned, and he stood with the armies of Israel on the banks of the Jordan ready to go in. He sent two spies ahead of him, and they went to Jericho. I find it interesting that he sent two spies. I’m sure that was not accidental. You’ll recall that 38 years before, Moses had sent twelve spies into the Promised Land. Ten had come back with an unbelieving report that they would not be able to conquer the inhabitants. But there were only two spies who believed God’s promise of victory. I think Joshua must have been thinking back to that. He wanted two that had faith in the God of Israel, and who would find out what they needed to know, and who would return with a believing report. So the spies went off to Jericho, and there they met Rahab. Afterward, they came back with the report that the people of the land had hearts that were failing them with fear because of the presence of the Jewish people on the far banks of the Jordan.
It’s really a very interesting story. If God was the one who sent the spies, we have to understand that it wasn’t primarily for the sake of bringing back information about Jericho that the spies were sent because, of course, God knew all about Jericho. He knew what He was going to do, and the battle didn’t depend upon any particular strategy hinged upon the geography of the land or anything like that. If God was sending the spies into Jericho, the obvious reason why He was doing that was to save Rahab because He had one of His children there in this pagan city, a woman who had come to believe on Him. And it was through her meeting with the spies and the arrangements that were made that this woman’s life was spared, as well as the lives of all of her family, when the Israelites eventually did overrun the city and destroy it utterly in accordance with God’s command.
So isn’t it interesting that the first great story in Joshua is a story of God’s saving of this pagan woman? What that really means is that the first real story in a book of vicious conquest is a story of God’s grace. From the Israelites’ point of view this is a marvelous story because it’s a victory. But from the Bible’s point of view it was a judgment. This was no little altercation; this was a massive invasion, and it was an invasion flowing from the judgment of God because of the sins of the people of the land. Way back in the book of Genesis, when God was speaking to Abraham about the land that He was going to give, He spelled it all out. He named the tribes, and then said, “But that’s not going to happen for a long period of time yet because the iniquity of the Amorites is not full.” At that point they hadn’t come to full term in judgment; but now they had. As all those years had gone by the iniquity of the people had increased, and judgment was coming.
