Rahab

Rahab smiled softly as she held the sleeping babe to her bosom.

Her newborn son– Boaz– was the son of a prince of Judah, Salmon by name.

She still hummed the tune she had sung to the babe as she had bounced it and rocked it to sleep. Tears of joy sprang to her eyes as she looked upon the fat-cheeked, rosy little baby in wonder, her heart full of emotion.

How could she have ever known that such happiness would ever be hers? 

How could she have ever known that she– once a harlot, scorned and mistreated by men, many several times her age– would ever be loved?

She had grown up in Jericho, almost a street-rat. Her father had been a hopeless drunk, and her family had fallen into desperate poverty as a result. Her mother had tried to keep the family going, but the little money they came across would be squandered on drink by their witless father, leaving the family almost begging in the streets. The children were left in rags, in the worst rooms the city could offer.

This state of affairs threw the high-strung, worn-out woman– her mother– into a state of despair and nervous rage, and she would be, by turns, despondent or overzealous.

As the eldest daughter, Rahab had tried to help earn money. She had tried to relieve the burden that sat so heavily upon her quickly sickening mother.

But honest work never seemed to bring them enough to eat.

And the little ones, sometimes so hungry they could hardly stand it, had turned their skinny hands to stealing food from unwatchful merchants…

Her mother, at last, in a fit of temper, had suggested Rahab sell herself to bring in the money they needed.

The girl had looked at her wide-eyed, and had whispered, “Am I to do something like that?” Her mother had sneered at her with tears in her eyes, and that very night, Rahab had gone.

She brought back enough money to buy the family the first hot meal they had eaten for weeks, with plenty to spare.

But the price had been terrible. Bruised, and with a scarred conscience, Rahab had spurned the meal herself, and had gone to her thin mattress of a bed, shivering.

She was of a naturally shy and retiring disposition, and the cost of this new life was brutally taxing. But even now, she refused to complain.

Every night she went, and every day, little by little, things improved for the drunkard’s family. A flush of pink began to be seen in the cheeks of the little ones, who didn't understand, neither did they care where the money to buy food and clothes came from.

Soon Rahab had earned enough to move them out of their hovel and into a house right on the impenetrable wall of Jericho. She put aside a room in which she had to continue to conduct her business– at least now she had a place to bring the men to…

Even if they wanted to, her family couldn't complain.

A harlot's house was still a house.

Rahab laid the sleeping babe in its pretty crib, and covered it with a soft shawl. Stooping, she gazed into the peaceful face of her little one, thinking about how things had changed.

How that house on the wall had been her salvation. How, even though it didn't feel like it or look like it, God had been leading her, in order to save her and her family, to bring her to this happiness.

Married to a prince of Judah…

For Rahab, despite her position as one of the most scorned and overlooked creatures in the city, had always had faith in a supreme God.

Her faith was pure, and true, and beat tirelessly within the heart beneath the poor, abused bosom.

There were the gods of Jericho, and of the land, but… Rahab wanted more.

More than statues, and the repeated chanting of prayers to gods that never seemed to move or breathe or live.

Rahab wanted a living God.

Beer-lahai-roi… The Living One who sees me…

And then, one day, news burst upon Jericho of a nation liberated by the supernatural after hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt.

Egypt, that great nation, had been utterly crushed by the hand of a God beyond anything Rahab had ever known. Against all the gods of Egypt, He had executed judgement…

The vast Red Sea had been parted by that same supernatural hand, and it had swallowed the enemies of Israel within.

Two other mighty nations of the Amorites had challenged Israel as they had travelled to this, the land promised their fathers by their supernatural God, and one by one, they had been utterly destroyed as well.

And that God-led nation? Was now coming to Jericho.

The news that turned the hearts of the men of Jericho to water, revived the heart of little Rahab. Rather than filling her with fear, she found herself unreasonably excited. She wanted to see this nation, this people, whose God moved with them, and led them by a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day.

She wanted to meet this living God…

When two men, spies from the general Joshua, had slipped into Jericho, they had gone into Rahab's abode, marked by a scarlet cord as a harlot's house, understanding it to be the best place to hide while they carried out their purpose.

The moment Rahab saw them, she knew them to be men of Israel, and not people of the land she inhabited.

She knew for what purpose they had come.

And, though normally very shy, she had seized her opportunity to make her burning faith known to them, and to petition for the salvation of her life and of her family.

With a heart almost bursting with excitement, she had hidden the spies from the King's soldiers, had made a bargain with them, and had let them out by the window in the wall with directions on how to avoid the troops of soldiers searching for them.

They left her one condition.

To make sure the scarlet cord that marked her as a prostitute, the scarlet cord that had saved their lives, that had been the rope by which they had descended to safety, was in the window they returned with the rest of their nation.

Rahab didn't think twice, but bound the cord in the window, and left it hanging there for all to see who came in or out of the city.

A harlot's house became the only safe place in Jericho. A harlot's house became the house of salvation.

When Israel arrived, and began an inexplicable vigil, marching around the walls in silence, she had brought every member of her family home, and had locked them in with her.

When at Israel's shout, the wall around the house had fallen, crumbled away, and was destroyed, Rahab's house alone in the wall remained standing, the scarlet cord flying from the window.

Blood-curdling screams and war cries, the sounds of fierce battle, had issued from without her door - but nothing could enter to harm her or her loved ones. As blood on the door posts had protected the nation of Israel from the Death Angel that had killed all the firstborn of Egypt, so also did the blood-red cord protect Rahab and all that was hers now.

The two spies had finally returned, and brought her and her family out of Jericho before Joshua ordered the city to be burnt with fire.

For the first time in her life, Rahab and her family were treated with kindness, with love, and respect. For having endangered her own life to save the lives of the two spies, shy little Rahab found herself thrust into the limelight.

When the handsome, noble prince Salma had approached her, she had been overwhelmed, hardly believing his professions towards her. From the first, she made known to him all her past.

But he had gently taken her hands in his his, and said, “All the people do know that you are a virtuous woman. There is a diamond in your heart, for it is true, and your love for the Lord our God do all men speak of. You have both courage and faith in abundance, and a love for family that is seldom matched. You would honour me by becoming my wife.”

And now, as Rahab gazed around her at the finery and luxurious trappings of her new home with the Judean prince, she wondered how it could be that she, a harlot, could have become a prince's wife.

How could she ever have known that the road of life, often so painful, so miserable, so difficult, would lead here?

How could she ever have dreamed?

A diamond in the dirt, finally uncovered, and set as a crown jewel in the lineage of the Messiah, where she belonged.