It’s quite interesting that the Scriptures never condemn Rahab for lying to the king’s soldiers.
Quite the contrary actually, when we look at the book of Hebrews we find that she is praised for her behavior.
“By trusting, the walls of Yericho fell down- after the people had marched around them for seven days. By trusting, Rachav the prostitute welcomed the spies and therefore did not die along with those who were disobedient. What more should I say? There isn’t time to tell about Gid’on, Barak, Shimshon, Yiftach, David, Sh’mu’el and the prophets”-Hebrews 11:30-32
What are we to make of this?
I’ve heard some people say that because Rahab was a heathen, a member of an enemy race of God and on top of that a prostitute, the Lord simply didn’t hold any positive expectations that she would be a truthful person and just used her for His own divine purposes.
Well, we actually don’t find that viewpoint in Scripture either.
The principle being fleshed out here is that sometimes during our life we’re going to face circumstances when we will be forced to disobey governmental authorities or go against even our own families in order to be obedient to Hashem.
A perfect example were those righteous gentiles who helped to protect Jewish families from being slaughtered by the Nazis by hiding them in their homes.
A movie was made about one of the most famous of these righteous gentiles called Schindler’s List.
In order to protect their Jewish neighbors, these righteous gentiles outright lied to the authorities and even risked their lives to help the Jews.
And now, they will be counted as righteous by the Creator for all eternity.
If Rahab had NOT lied to the authorities, the two Hebrew spies may well have been discovered and put to death…
…and Joshua would have had to attempt another way to penetrate the land.
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