I Know

Before the spies lay down for the night, Rahab went up to the roof. She had answered the king’s demand and sent his men away. Now she spoke to the two men whose hiding place she had kept, and her first words concerned the land they had come to inspect.

“I know that the LORD has given you this land and that the fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of you.” She did not begin by asking what Joshua intended. She told his men what she understood, and what the people around her feared.

The strangers had entered Jericho secretly, but the history of their people had arrived before them. Rahab could name what had been heard in the city. Her account reached back to Egypt and then came nearer, to the kings across the Jordan.

“For we have heard how the LORD dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.” These were the events she placed before them. She spoke as someone who had heard the reports and understood that Jericho now stood in the path of the people they described.

“When we heard this, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.” She included herself among those whose hearts had melted. The woman who had hidden the spies did not claim to have stood outside her city’s fear.

The king had sent men to find the spies. Rahab had concealed them, though she had heard the same reports that had unsettled everyone else. Here on the roof, she gave the men an account of the fear inside Jericho that they could not have gathered by looking at its gates.

Then she turned from the land to her family. “Now therefore, please swear to me by the LORD that you will indeed show kindness to my family, because I showed kindness to you.” She named what she had done for them and asked for kindness in return.

She wanted a sure sign that her father and mother would be spared. She asked also for her brothers and sisters, and for all who belonged to them. Her request extended beyond her own life to the lives gathered around her father’s household.

She did not leave the danger unnamed. She asked them to deliver her family from death. The woman who had kept these two men from being brought before the king now asked them to remember other people when the land passed into Israel’s hands.

“Our lives for your lives!” the men agreed. “If you do not report our mission, we will show you kindness and faithfulness when the LORD gives us the land.” Their answer bound their own lives to the lives she had asked them to spare.

There was a condition: she must continue to keep their mission secret. What she had concealed from the king could not now be reported elsewhere. They promised kindness and faithfulness, but the promise would have to hold beyond this roof and this night.

Rahab had received an answer for her family. The men had pledged their lives, though they were still inside a city whose ruler wanted them found. Before they could carry her request back to Joshua, they had to get beyond the wall.