Joshua 2:15-21 – The Beauty of the LORD’s Grace

In these verses, the spies promise that Rahab and anyone in her household on the day the Israelites attack Jericho will be spared. Here we see the beauty of the LORD’s grace.

Joshua 2 could easily have been left out by the writer in recording the account of Israel’s entry into the land. Chapter 3 seems to follow more logically from chapter 1. But the writer deliberately turns aside and inserts a detailed record of the story of Rahab. Surely this shows a special significance to this account. Why would the writer go out of his way, as it were, to include this material?

This story involves the conversion of a pagan – a Canaanite, even one caught up in a very immoral lifestyle. Rahab is not just a Gentile, she is a disreputable one. Yet the spies promise to spare her from the coming destruction because of her faith in God and her assistance as they did His work. We see later in the book that she is welcomed into the church (Josh. 6:22-25)! To some, that might be offensive. We might say: ‘We can’t have that’. Surely the church is only for respectable, clean, upright, decent folks. But that is like saying that hospitals are only for doctors, nurses and x-ray machines instead of for sick people. Or it is like saying that only coroners and undertakers belong in morgues instead of dead people. Who then should be in the church but sinners? The church is not a club but a refuge for sinners who have been touched by the grace of God. In fact, when we come to the New Testament, it seems that Rahab’s sinful past did not bother the writer of the first Gospel. Rather, Matthew seemed to see in Rahab a trophy of divine grace. Isn’t it astounding that this shady lady of Jericho should be the ancestress of Jesus the Messiah (Matt. 1:5)!