This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 104, “Moms in the Bible–Rahab”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/moms-in-the-bible-rahab
We are going to do things a little out of order this month in anticipation of Easter, starting with an early look at the Moms in the Bible.
I want to look at a mama who doesn’t have a chapter in my book, but does play a very important role in Scripture, and in another mama’s story. She’s actually not thought of as a mom in the Bible very often, but she was one. Her name is Rahab. Her story can be found in the book of Joshua, chapters 2 and 6.
Rahab was a woman living in the land of Canaan in the city of Jericho. Do those places sound familiar? After Jochebed’s son Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were too afraid to enter the land God had promised them. Instead, they spent decades wandering in the wilderness. Moses passed away, Joshua assumed leadership, and God told him that it is time to stop wandering and to settle in the land he had promised. One obstacle was the city of Jericho, and under Joshua’s leadership, two spies made their way to the city and came to the home of Rahab.
Without question or hesitation, Rahab welcomed the spies into her home and protected them from her own people. The king himself sent orders to Rahab to bring the men out but she did not budge. Instead, she lied and sent the king’s men on a wild goose chase. We spoke last month of Jochebed, Moses’s mom, and how she defied the Pharaoh to save her baby boy. Jochebed’s defiance makes sense, she was an Israelite, with faith in the one true God. Why would Rahab risk anything for these Israelite spies?
After the king’s men leave and night falls, Rahab has a conversation with the spies. And this conversation says a lot about who this woman is. Let’s read Joshua 2 beginning in verse 9
“and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and everyone who lives in the land is panicking because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings you completely destroyed across the Jordan. When we heard this, we lost heart, and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below. Now please swear to me by the Lord that you will also show kindness to my father’s family, because I showed kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all who belong to them, and save us from death.””
Rahab was living in a polytheistic land. A land that denied there being one true God but upheld the worship of many. Yet she shared how she had come to learn of the God of the Israelites. How the stories of what he had done for his people had reached their ears. The people of Jericho believed the stories and were filled with fear at what that God could do to them. Rahab herself stated that the God of the Israelites is above any and all other gods. The name she used for him is “Yehova.” This is the Lord’s proper name, his holy name. And she declared, “For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below.” She recognized that this Israelite God was more powerful than any that her nation worshiped, and because of that, helping his people was worth the risk. She didn’t hesitate to take the chance to save her family.
And she was rewarded for her courage. The spies reported all that had happened to Joshua. Rahab’s own words were what convinced Joshua and the Israelites that victory was assured. When the Israelites took Jericho, Rahab and all her family who were with her were saved, just as the spies had promised. Rahab’s part in the book of Joshua ends with the words: However, Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, her father’s family, and all who belonged to her, because she hid the messengers Joshua had sent to spy on Jericho, and she still lives in Israel today. (Josh 6: 25).
She still lives in Israel today. Meaning at the time the book was written, Rahab and her family were fully a part of Israel. In fact, her family had grown. In Matthew chapter 1, we find the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and there, in verse 5, is Rahab. She had married an Israelite man who was part of the tribe of Judah and they had a family. One of their descendants was named Boaz.
Oh Boaz.
I haven’t talked much about him yet on Moms Take Ten, but this man is worth remembering. He is the man who married Ruth the Moabitess, redeeming her and Naomi when their husbands had died. There is much that could be said about Boaz.
And Matthew tells us that he was part of Rahab’s family. The genealogies in Scripture say that Boaz was her son, however since biblical genealogies sometimes skip generations, he could have been a grand or great grandson. Either way, he was one of her descendants and he would have known her story.
A woman who came to faith in the one true God in her adulthood and a man who married a woman who came to faith in her adulthood.
A woman who was a foreigner welcomed by the Israelites and a man who made a foreign woman welcome.
How we live today can impact generations to come.
When Rahab was speaking with the spies on the roof of her home in Jericho, she said, “Now please swear to me by the Lord that you will also show kindness to my father’s family, because I showed kindness to you.” (Josh 2:12)
The word kindness fails to capture what she is saying. The hebrew word used here is “ḥeseḏ” This word, when used of God, speaks of his everlasting lovingkindness. When used of people, it refers to faithful, loyal love in action. I like how GotQuestions put it, “Hesed is not merely an emotion or feeling but involves action on behalf of someone who is in need. Hesed describes a sense of love and loyalty that inspires merciful and compassionate behavior toward another person.” (https://www.gotquestions.org/meaning-of-hesed.html) That does not mean it isn’t an emotion also. Like we learned from our children in last month’s Love Day special, hesed is emotion and action combined. The Bible Project puts it like this, “While the action may be an obligation or duty, khesed also refers to the emotional motivation of love that drives overabundant expressions of generosity and care.” (https://d1bsmz3sdihplr.cloudfront.net/media/Study%20Notes/Loyal%20Love_Study%20Notes_final.pdf)
Rahab is saying that she was and will be loyal to the spies and the Israelite nation. She didn’t turn them into the king while they were with her and she won’t betray them when they have left. She is going to be steadfast in her commitment to them. And she is asking that they in turn be faithful to her and her family. That they not forget her but keep their promise. That they show her mercy and not deal with her as they deal with the rest of Jericho. She is asking them to be trustworthy and merciful.
This same word, hesed, is the theme word of the book of Ruth.
I absolutely love discovering connections like this in the scripture!
Rahab, a foreign woman, showed hesed to the Israelites, and they showed it to her in return, saving her and bringing her into Israel where the people continue the commitment by welcoming her whole family into their community.
Ruth, a foreign woman, showed hesed to Naomi, an Israelite woman, who brought Ruth back to Israel. There, Ruth met Boaz, who lived out what he had learned of hesed from his family by welcoming and caring for Ruth and Naomi. And eventually the whole community of Bethlehem welcomed her as well.
Hundreds of years later, another mama praises God for the hesed that he himself has shown her and her people. In Luke chapter 1, we find Mary, reveling in the wonder of life growing inside of her and of the calling of the Lord in her life. In her song, her magnificat, she says, “for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” (Luke 1:49-50) The word for mercy is the greek translation of hesed, the word eleos. Later on she declares, “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” (Luke 1:54-55)
Mary was carrying the descendant of Rahab and Ruth in her womb. He was hesed in living form. Through him, all of us can come to know and experience and live in the hesed of God. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, using the greek translation eleos, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” (Eph. 2:4-5) We are just weeks away from a church-wide celebration of this act of hesed, Resurrection Sunday. As we ready ourselves for that day, let us ponder the wonder of God’s love for us, the power of that love in action that saved us, and the steadfastness of that love to keep us and carry us now through all eternity.
References:
Got Questions, “What is the meaning of the word hesed” https://www.gotquestions.org/meaning-of-hesed.html
Bible Project word study on hesed https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/loyal-love/
Lyssa Stoyko 