She let them down by a rope through her window for her was in the wall, the city wall, she lived in the city wall.
(Joshua 2:15)
The older I get, the more amazed I become at how much of the biblical story I have completely missed. Details that used to seem insignificant, that faded into the background of the narrative like stage props, now reach out and grab my attention. This again happened as I was reading the story of Rahab and the two Israelite spies.
When I came to Josh 2:15 where she is letting them down through her window, I could not help but notice the odd and exaggerated emphasis (especially notable in Hebrew) the text gave to the location of Rahab’s home. The text states three times that Rahab’s house was in, by, against (however you want to translate the Hebrew) the city wall. That the text so emphasizes this minute detail which at this point in the story seems insignificant indicates that this fact makes an important point that the reader shouldn’t miss
The narrative places Rahab at the very margin of her city in the most vulnerable position imaginable treating her almost as a human shield To quote Pink Floyd Rahab is little more than another brick in the wall to her Canaanite city
A number of reasons might be offered for the significance of this detail This made Rahab more accessible to the spies and her place somewhere they could relatively easily avoid detection But it also and more importantly serves as commentary on the Canaanite culture that rejected and marginalized Rahab This would certainly explain how readily she sides with the Israelite spies against her own city and its culture
People like Rahab are commonly exploited and expelled to the outskirts of respectable society Because they are deemed disposable they are made the buffer between the rest of us and any danger that may come knocking Of course when readers reach the point in the story where the Jericho wall crumbles we see just how vulnerable, just how disposable Rahab and her kind really are How fitting that YHWH spares Rahab What an odd sight it must have been for the entire outer wall to collapse except for that one section where Rahab lived Make no mistake about it YHWH has always been on the side of the marginalized and oppressed
Two final observations First I find it interesting that Song of Songs 8:9-10 refers to the virtuous virgin as a wall using the same Hebrew word we find in Josh 2:15 While I certainly see no deliberate allusion here to Rahab it does introduce ambiguity to the metaphor of the wall that suggests a deep and abiding virtue in a woman most of us would right off as hopelessly depraved YHWH saw in Rahab what everyone else missed
Second Jesus made a shocking claim to the religious elites of his own day He told them that the prostitutes and tax collectors were entering the kingdom ahead of them in Matt 21:31-32 What an outstanding commentary on Joshua 2:15 Rahab you will recall became an Israelite who married a member of the tribe of Judah and became the great great grandmother of David as well as the ancestress of Jesus of Nazareth She was subsequently praised for her faith in both Hebrews and James
Faith and the kingdom come much more easily to the poor and powerless than to the rest of us They have nothing to lose in the displacement of the current world order
Father
Thank you for the way you exalt the humble and humble the exalted While I have not always appreciated being on the receiving end of this reversal of fortunes I now see it as an act of your love and a necessary precondition of my healing Thank you for always standing on the side of the oppressed Please give me the courage and integrity to stand there with you Lord Jesus lead us in prioritizing those the world has forgotten You have shown us how much we have to learn from them about the nature of your kingdom Holy Spirit enable us to see our own poverty, weakness, and blindness and to love the sinner, the prostitute the beggar within ourselves so that we can at long last learn to love the ones we encounter in our streets
AMEN