![]() ![]() Rahab has a special function in the biblical narratives of Israel’s existence in the land. the household of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4) is incorporated into the new sociopolitical order. Her household as the site of female authority (cf. When Rahab and her family survive the conquest of Jericho, they thereby become part of the nation Israel, a system of tribes not city states (like Jericho). As such, it was the foundational building block of the sociopolitical structure. The household was the most numerous unit of society in ancient Israel. 2:18 6:22-23), presumably nieces and nephews and possibly servants. The extended family in her household consists of her parents, siblings, and “all who belong” to her parents and siblings (2:13, cf. Rahab is the head of her household, which was not only a dwelling but also a social unit. They are exempted from the ḥerem, Israel’s obligation to destroy all Canaanites (see 6:17), and are brought out of the city to live among the Israelites (6:25). When the Israelites destroy Jericho, as described in Joshua, Rahab and her whole extended family indeed escape doom by waiting inside a house marked with a red thread, just as the Israelites who stayed in houses marked with the blood of the paschal lamb were spared the fate of the Egyptians. The spies give her a crimson thread to hang from her window, with the injunction that she is to gather her family and wait inside her house as long as they stay indoors, they will be spared. She asks that she and her family be spared once the Israelites attack Jericho. She requests a return for her act of ḥesed (NJPS, “I have shown loyalty”). Rahab lets the two men out through her window, which is in the town wall. Rahab is midwife and mother to Israel in its beginnings in Canaan. ![]() Meanwhile, she has hidden the men under the flax drying on her roof (2:4) the writer uses the unusual word ti zpeno, “she hid him” (even though there are two men), perhaps as an allusion to Exod 2:2, where Moses’s mother hides her newborn (ti zpenehu). She tells the king’s men that the two men have left and that the king’s men should chase them. ![]() Like the midwives in Egypt, Rahab is faced with a “moment of truth.” Like them, Rahab defies the ruler and rescues the Israelites. The king, hearing about the two men, demands that Rahab give them up. They come to Rahab’s house for lodging, information, and/or sex. According to the narrative in Joshua 2, before the conquest of Canaan, Joshua sends two men as spies to see the land. A Canaanite woman living in Jericho, Rahab is a prostitute who is also a biblical heroine. ![]()
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