joshua 2

Haystack bible commentary

"Stacks and stacks of commentary...."

==Joshua 2:1======

Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.”So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there. 

​The Hebrew word translated "lodged" is literally "lay." We can see why Rahab has been turned into an innkeeper, both to preserve her reputation and the reputation of the two spies. It is not conceivable that the two spies went to Rahab for her services as a prostitute, but the evidence is against it. The Bible is not a prissy book; if the spies had gone to Rahab as a harlot, it would have read "lay with her." Samson, for example, is not spared the truth in this respect , for we are plainly told that he lay with a harlot in Gaza (Judges 16{1-3).

==Joshua 2:2======

And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men have come here tonight from the children of Israel to search out the country.”

​Some versions translate this as "spy" out the country. The suggestion implies the use of espionage.

==Joshua 2:11======

And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord
​ your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

​Rahab, in citing the terror of the Canaanites over the power of Israel, does more than the Canaanites. She attributes this power to the total power of the Lord. The Canaanites were in terror, because they recognized what Israel had done to all its enemies. The history of Israel from the Red Sea crossing to the present, a forty-year history, was familiar to them. Their recognition of the Lord's role in that series of events was not religious but superstitious. Rahab, however, saw the matter religiously, and she recognized the sovereignty of God and gave herself to His service at the risk of her life. She did not, like the people of Jericho, wait for death to come. Instead, she risked death to help spies in order to gain life.
     He who has an eye to see will see the hand of God in history. Those who refuse will still see the evidence but wrongfully attribute it to the simple power of man and his ingenuity.
     Rahab is cited as an example of faith in the New Testament for this very reason. In Hebrews 11, of whom Rahab is one, were people like Abraham, who "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builders and maker is God" (Heb 11:10).