March 24, 2005

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Deuteronomy 2:1-5:21; Mark 15:1-41

Weekly Memory Verse: Hebrews 10:38

Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

I apologize to all of you, I missed sending the study out yesterday, and hope to make it up today.  On the last study I also missed updating the Bible Reading plan, so there are two days worth on this one.

Joshua 2 (NASB95)
¹ Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lodged there. ² It was told the king of Jericho, saying, “Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” ³ And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” ⁴ But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. ⁵ “It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark, that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” ⁶ But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof. ⁷ So the men pursued them on the road to the Jordan to the fords; and as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out, they shut the gate. ⁸ Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, ⁹ and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. ¹⁰ “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 the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. ¹¹ “When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. ¹² “Now therefore, please swear to me by the Lord, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, ¹³ and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” ¹⁴ So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when the Lord gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.” ¹⁵ Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall. ¹⁶ She said to them, “Go to the hill country, so that the pursuers will not happen upon you, and hide yourselves there for three days until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your way.” ¹⁷ The men said to her, “We shall be free from this oath to you which you have made us swear, ¹⁸ unless, when we come into the land, you tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father’s household. ¹⁹ “It shall come about that anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be free; but anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head if a hand is laid on him. ²⁰ “But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have made us swear.” ²¹ She said, “According to your words, so be it.” So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window. ²² They departed and came to the hill country, and remained there for three days until the pursuers returned. Now the pursuers had sought them all along the road, but had not found them. ²³ Then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they related to him all that had happened to them. ²⁴ They said to Joshua, “Surely the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us.”^[1]

On the first read through this chapter a question occurred to me as to why Joshua sent the spies secretly.  Was he working within the will of God and following His guidance in this move?  We really don't know the answer to that question.  We do know that Jericho was a key city in the land.  It commanded the passes to the central highlands, and stood right in the way of their conquest, (The Bible Knowledge Commentary). 

Joshua also demonstrates that he learned from the time that he was sent out as a spy by Moses.  By sending out the spies secretly, they did not answer to the congregation as a whole, but rather answered directly to him in regard to their answer.  This removed any possibility of the people becoming discouraged just before the battles began. 

Hebrews 11:31 (NASB95)
³¹ By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.

James 2:25 (NASB95)
²⁵ In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

Genesis 38:15 (NASB95)
¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, for she had covered her face. ^[2]

I have read in other places that Rahab was actually an innkeeper; the Bible holds fast to the truth that she was a whore.  The house where these two men lodged at was not a hotel; it was a whore-house.  The word used in reference to her trade was the same one used in reference to Tamar in Genesis 38.  Rahab made her wages by prostitution; she was a woman of a sinful life. 

This passage is loaded with revelations about human nature and the way that God works with and around the sin of man.  The men may have sought out the whore house because they may have wanted to make use of the trade, or it could have been that they were seeking lodging.  If I were to guess, I would say that they were making the best of the trip, and worked in a little pleasure on the side.  That pleasure trip caused a ripple to occur in the history of Israel that would change their future forever. 

Deuteronomy 7:2 (NASB95)
² and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.

Deuteronomy 7:16 (NASB95)
¹⁶ “You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

Deuteronomy 20:17-18 (NASB95)
¹⁷ “But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God.

Exodus 34:12-16 (NASB95)
¹² “Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. ¹³ “But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim ¹⁴ —for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God— ¹⁵ otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, ¹⁶ and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods. ^[3]

This warning was given over and over through the course of the Exodus and the preparation to enter the Promised Land.  Yet these men took it on themselves to violate the command and they made a deal with Rahab.   God used the result of their possible sin to change the course of Israel's future.  Not only did He use the result of their sin to alter the course, He also used Rahab as one who was a grandmother of Jesus way back down the line. 

Look at the similarity between the Passover and the way that Rahab made the bargain with the spies.  With the Passover God delivered the Jews from the dead life of slavery into His designated will for their lives.  They went from being a people without direction from God to a people who were totally dependant upon God for life.  God spared their lives because of the blood of the lamb that was slain, and God spared the lives of Rahab and her family by the blood of the men that were not slain.  The scarlet ribbon that was tied in the window possibly represented the blood that was put over the doorpost of the house of the Jews.  By tying that ribbon the vengeance of the Jews passed over her household.  As far as I can tell, Rahab and her family were assimilated into the family of Israel and did not become slaves as was ordered in regard to captives since Rahab shows up in the genealogy of Christ. 

Rahab also acted as a mediator between the men and the king of the land.  Consider that for a moment.  Also consider that the men were to stay hidden for three days in the woods in order to wait for their pursuers to return from their pursuit.  In a way they symbolized becoming dead by hiding, yet they were alive and waiting for the opportunity to continue their mission.  When Jesus died, He did not die completely, rather His spirit was alive and went to minister to those who were locked in hell, possibly the bosom of Abraham declaring that the final penalty had been paid. The passage regarding this doesn't exactly tell us where Jesus went, only that He went to those locked in prison.  Then he returned three days later to rise from the dead and to continue His mission on earth. 

1 Peter 3:18-19 (NASB95)
¹⁸ For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; ¹⁹ in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, ^[4]

One last observation on this passage, it was a fulfillment of promise.  God had promised several times in the past that if the people of Israel would follow Him, He would melt the hearts of their enemies with fear and would drive them out ahead of their conquest.  God made good on His promise and caused the people to remember how the Red Sea was divided forty years in the past, as well as causing them to fear because of the conquests that God gave Israel success in. 

Just for a side thought, imagine being in the shoes of the spies.  They were in a foreign land and were discovered  by the King.  Their only possibility of escape was through the conniving of a prostitute that they had never met before.  They may have been under conviction because of going to the prostitute when they were on a holy mission.  They faced the terror of men, and the terror of God, and yet they were marveling at the way that God melted the hearts of the men as God had promised.  I doubt that they were having much fun, it was probably extremely stressful.

I feel as if I have merely scratched the surface on this chapter.  It is rich, and there is a lot of meaning that is still waiting to be written about.  If you have further thoughts on this chapter write in. 

Father, as we consider the puzzles and the many stories that are wrapped up in this chapter, give each of us a hunger and a thirst for the Word.

In Him,

Joe Turner.