Joshua Chapter 2: Rahab hides the Israelite spies

Chapter 2 is the fascinating story of the prostitute Rahab, whose house is on the wall of the city of Jericho. Joshua sends two spies to see what Jericho is like, because Jericho lies opposite where they will be crossing the river Jordan. Rahab takes these spies into her house and hides them from the king’s messengers, who come and demand that she hand the men over. Rahab says the men have been and gone, and the king’s messengers leave. She then tells the men hidden on the roof that she knows that the God of Israel will give Jericho into the hands of Israel as he has made them victorious up to this time.

She asks them for kindness for everyone in her family just as she has been kind in hiding and so saving them. The two spies give her their promise and she lets them escape down a cord from her window on the city wall. The men tell her that their promise will be void unless she hangs a scarlet cord in her window and brings all her family into her house. Rahab agrees, and the men escape and return to Joshua, telling him everything and saying that God has given them the city.

There are several rich and important spiritual meanings in this very graphic story. First, we should appreciate that the spies do not seem to go anywhere else in Jericho than to Rahab! The point is, they don’t need to, because Rahab’s prostitution – selling her body for men to enjoy – represents the quality of the whole city of Jericho, which stands almost directly opposite where Israel will cross the Jordan. It must and will be taken. (See Doctrine of Life 46).

In this story, Jericho stands for a sensual life. It's the sort of life that comes into play when anything we know about God’s truth gets perverted and rejected as nothing. No truth, no values, no conscience, nothing! (See Arcana Caelestia 2973[6].) This is why the story involves the prostitute Rahab, because she pictures that level of life.

But Rahab sees herself for what she is and for what her city is, and she knows that with the God of the Israelites coming, there is no future for Jericho. She believes the future lies with Israel and their God.

So what we have in this story is a sinful woman whose mind and heart and actions turn towards repentance, and even a genuine worship and acknowledgement of God. For us, it is the picture of our unspiritual or natural life which is self-gratifying, hedonistic, pleasure-seeking and opportunistic. But hopefully for us it is also the picture of our wish and our intention to believe in and follow God (Arcana Caelestia 5639[2]). If we have that wish and work towards it, as with Rahab, it will eventually save us from ourselves and save everything about us (all Rahab’s family).

Next, we should look at these two men who are to spy out Jericho but who go in to Rahab.

Perhaps a better word than to ‘spy’ is to ‘espy’ which means to observe but even more to take a very long hard look at how a situation is. If we direct that to ourselves we are talking about real self-examination, about looking at how we have been and what we have thought, said and done, or not. We can only examine ourselves properly if we have begun to take on various values and truths, and look at ourselves in their light (Doctrine of Life 6).

There are two men, not one, and this is because our spiritual life involves a love for what is true and a love for what is good (Arcana Caelestia 5194). When we love and want to live by what is true, then things we know becomes things we feel and we have delight in them and doing them.

Lastly, note how these two men are hidden by Rahab high up on the roof, under her drying flax stalks. In the Word, anything up high is a picture of being closer to God, nearer to what is true (Divine Love and Wisdom 103). We see more high up! And the flax is the fibre from which our spiritual clothing – these truths again – can be made. And flax provides linen which was used for the high priest’s robes.

2973. 'Which was in all its borders round about' means exterior cognitions. This is clear from the meaning of 'borders' and of 'round about' as things that are exterior, dealt with in 2936. Thus here '[every] tree which was in the borders round about' means exterior cognitions. Exterior cognitions have to do with the religious observances and matters of doctrine which constitute the external things of the Church, whereas interior cognitions have to do with matters of doctrine which constitute the internal things of the Church. What the external things of the Church are, and what the internal, has been stated several times already.

[2] Furthermore in various places in the Word mention is made of the middle or the midst and of the regions encircling it, as when the land of Canaan is referred to, 'the middle' is used to describe where Zion and Jerusalem are, while the areas encircling describe where the nations are who are round about. 'The land of Canaan' represented the Lord's kingdom, 'Zion' the celestial part of it and 'Jerusalem' the spiritual, and there Jehovah or the Lord had His dwelling-place. The things that were round about, even to the borders, represented celestial and spiritual things spread out and derived in order from there. Where the furthest boundaries lay, there the representatives of celestial and spiritual things ended. Those representatives had their origin in the things that existed in the Lord's kingdom in heaven, where the Lord as the Sun is in the middle, from where all celestial flame and spiritual light radiate. Those nearest to Him dwell in the brightest light, while those who are more remote dwell in less light, and those who are the most remote in the least bright. At this point lie the borders where hell, which is outside heaven, begins.

[3] With celestial flame and spiritual light the position is that the existence of celestial things which are forms of innocence and love, and spiritual things which are forms of charity and faith, is proportional to the heat and light that is received, for those things are the source of all heat and light in heaven. This then is why 'the middle' means that which is inmost, and the encircling regions that which is outermost; and the spacing of the things that radiate in order from the inmost to the outermost is determined by their degree of innocence, love and charity. It is similar with each individual community of heaven. Those members in the middle are the best of its kind, and the love and charity of that kind becomes correspondingly less as these become more remote, that is, as such love and charity exist with members away from the middle.

[4] It is also similar with man. The inmost part of him is where the Lord resides with him, and from there governs the outlying parts. When a person permits the Lord to bring order to the outlying parts so that these correspond to the inmost parts, his state is such that he can be received into heaven, and the inmost, the interior, and the external parts of him act as one. But if the person does not permit the Lord to bring order to those outlying parts so that they correspond, he moves away from heaven, as far away as he is from permitting the Lord to bring that order to them. The fact that man's soul resides in the middle or inmost part of his being and the body in the outlying region or outermost parts is well known, for the body is that which surrounds and clothes his soul or spirit.

[5] With those in whom celestial and spiritual love reigns, good from the Lord flows in by way of the soul into the body, as a consequence of which the body becomes full of light, but with those in whom bodily and worldly love reigns, good from the Lord cannot flow in by way of the soul into the body. Instead their interiors are engulfed in darkness, as a consequence of which the body too becomes full of darkness, according to the Lord's own teaching in Matthew,

The lamp of the body is the eye. If the eye is sound, the whole body is full of light. If the eye is evil, the whole body is full of darkness. If therefore the light is darkness, how great is the darkness! Matthew 6:22-23.

'The eye' means the understanding part, which belongs in the soul, 2701.

[6] But matters are worse still with people whose interiors are 'darkness' while their exteriors seem to be 'full of light'. They are such as outwardly pretend to be angels of light but inwardly they are devils. They are referred to as 'Babel'. These people, when the things that are round about are destroyed, are carried headfirst into hell. This was represented by the city of Jericho whose walls fell down, and the city was given to destruction, after the priests had gone round it seven times with the ark, and had sounded their trumpets, Joshua 6:1-17. The same is meant in Jeremiah,

Set yourselves against Babel round about, all you who bend the bow. Raise a shout over her round about, she has given her hand, her foundations have fallen, her walls have been destroyed. Jeremiah 50:14-15.

From this it is now evident what 'round about' means. Reference is also made several times in the Word to 'the encircling regions', as in Jeremiah 21:14; 46:14; 49:5; Ezekiel 36:3-4, 7; 37:21; Amos 3:11; and elsewhere. By 'the encircling regions' is meant the things that are exterior, concerning which, in the Lord's Divine mercy, more will be said elsewhere.