Myth #84:

Rahab aided the Israelite spies.

The Myth: And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab, and lodged there. (Josh. 2:1)

The Reality: Hebrew scribes adapted an ancient folktale and added it to the fictional account of Jericho.

If Jericho had no residents at the time of Joshua, then we need to re-examine the story of Rahab, a harlot who lived in the city and provided aid and comfort to Joshua’s spies. According to the biblical account, Joshua sent two spies to check out Jericho and the surrounding communities. The king of Jericho learned that they had come to the house of Rahab and sent her a message saying she should turn the spies over to his troops. When the soldiers arrived at her house, she falsely told them that the Israelites had already left.

Later, Rahab said to the spies that she had heard about the mighty deeds of the Israelite god and knew that Joshua’s army would roll right over the city. She offered to hide them if during the attack the Israelites would spare her life and the lives of her family.

The spies agreed but told her to make sure that when Joshua’s army attacked, everyone remained inside her house. Then they gave her a scarlet cord to hang from her window as a sign to the Israelite soldiers. When Jericho fell, Joshua spared her and her family.

The Rahab story bears significant similarities to another story appearing in the Book of Judges, but that story is about the House of Joseph trying to capture Bethel. The spies saw a man coming out of the city and agreed that if he would show them how to sneak into the city, they would deal kindly with him after the attack. He led them through a hidden entrance and, after the Israelites captured Bethel, they spared the man and his family .

Since Jericho didn’t exist in the time of Joshua, the story of Rahab can’t be true. The parallel story in Judges about the spies at Bethel suggests the existence of an old legend that was adopted by separate Hebrew scribes at different times and represented different points of view about Israel’s history. In all likelihood, Rahab was a city or village rather than an actual person, and the description of her as a prostitute probably represents some historical event in that city’s past where it may have betrayed an ally, as Rahab did in the story of Jericho. In later scripture, the name Rahab seems to have had an ancient connotation as an evil force. Psalms 87:4 refers to Egypt as Rahab in a negative context and Isaiah 51:9 tells us that God destroyed a monster dragon named Rahab.