She recognized them the moment they slipped through the door. No one snuck into her establishment without her knowledge. They kept to the sidelines, clearly hoping to deflect unnecessary attention. Quietly, they waited their turn to acquire lodgings. Instincts on high alert. Eyes sharply focused. Ears finely tuned. Men on a mission. City assessors. Army evaluators. Spies. Israelites.
Their obvious belief that they had entered Jericho unbeknownst to the king was mildly humorous. The king had eyes and ears everywhere. The whole city was on alert. Reports had poured in from far and wide of the Israelite exit from Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea. The defeat of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og. He had no intention of allowing such mayhem to reign in his city. These spies hadn’t slipped in under the king’s radar. He knew they were there. He knew where they were. He was just giving them time to settle in, relax, and tip their hand.
Apparently he felt Rahab’s lodging house was just the place for such activities. Everyone would have thought so. Marginalized originally by her gender alone, her career reputation only exacerbated the communities’ opinions. It was not a secret what the king believed was going on with the Israelites. He believed they were easy prey once they entered her door. So he sent his men to collect them, never once believing they wouldn’t be ensconced in her best room awaiting service.
Oddly, they weren’t there. The exhaustive search came up empty. Every room. Every cupboard. Every closet. Nothing. Just like Rahab said. They must have missed it. Been looking elsewhere when the Israelites snuck out. Perhaps they went through a window, found a side door, slipped out among a group of other travelers. Whatever the case, they had an impressive head start. It would take effort to catch up to them, but they would. They would find them. Bring them back. Deliver them to the king. Be the first city to thwart the Israelite conquerors. They had to. Their lives depended on it.
They never found them. Mostly because they hadn’t left. One should never judge a scarlet woman by her alleged career choice. Rahab was no one’s fool. She couldn’t be bought. She was intelligent. Wily. Inventive. Brave. She hadn’t fallen into frenzied distress when the king’s men knocked on her door. She hadn’t batted an eye as she urgently sent those soldiers on a wild goose chase. And she couldn’t afford to waver one iota as she began bartering with the men who now owed her their lives. It was time to play hardball.
Meeting their eyes directly, Rahab laid out what she knew, what she’d done, and what she wanted in return. She knew who they were and why they had come. They weren’t average travelers. They had no interest in tourism. They were not inclined to make use of her proffered goods. They were spies, plain and simple. Scoping out Jericho. Weighing the obstacles. Measuring the opposition. The city was firmly in their sights. Destruction was coming.
She wasn’t interested in hanging about for the inevitable onslaught. As much as she loved her city, she didn’t want to go down with the town. She wanted a future, a life. Not just for herself, but for her parents, her siblings, and all who were in their house. She wanted safety. For all of them. Her bargain read that way. She had saved them. They owed her. She required a pledge of surety in exchange for her continued asylum, ingenuity, and safe escape.
They had to give it. The woman wasn’t wrong. They owed her. Israel owed her. And she wasn’t really asking much. Safety when their marauding horde came calling. They could do that. But there had to be parameters. They couldn’t promise to search every crevice and hidey-hole in town looking for extended family before their swords became active. They couldn’t deliver a calling card two days prior. It would be impossible to send up a signal in time. The family would need to assemble now. The house would have to be immediately marked. The woman would have to keep their secret. And, when the time came, this woman who liked to manage situations herself, would have to sit in her house and trust men she didn’t know to keep a promise held together by spit and a handshake. The bargain must read as follows, “Tie the cord. Gather your family. Keep our secret. Trust us.”
Even as she made the vow, Rahab had to know the final promise would be the hardest to keep. Tying a scarlet cord in the window was easy. Gathering her family would be simple. Holding her tongue required minimal effort when her life depended on silence. But trust them? It was huge. A herculean task for a woman in her occupation. She was not just a lodgekeeper. She was a harlot. A scarlet woman. A prostitute. Her knowledge might be lacking in many arenas, but she knew men. From experience, she knew they were prone to deceit. Often dishonorable. Rarely trustworthy. Her jaundiced opinion of the opposite sex nearly had her pulling back her hand, pulling out of the deal. Her limited options gave her no choice. She had to agree if she wanted to live. She had to make the deal and hope her faith wasn’t sorely misplaced.
A line of concern must have creased Rahab’s brow as those men slipped out her window and down the wall into the darkness. Her stomach must have twisted with anxiety as she obediently tied that scarlet cord in the window of her home. Questions surely bombarded her mind. What if she’d just been played? What if they were as sneaky as their storied battle tactics? What if they forgot or denied their promise? Worse yet, what if they had never meant to keep it? What if they were just as untrustworthy as she knew most men to be? Had they looked at her, an unworthy roadhouse harlot, and deemed her dispensable, their mission more important than her life? Only time would tell.
She had more of it than she thought. Time, that is. Fearing an immediate attack, she’d tied the scarlet cord as soon as the men slipped out of sight. She’d gathered her family and households as quickly as possible, telling them only what she had to tell for them to stay. She’d been quiet. Even when the soldiers pursuing the men came back empty-handed and cast suspicious glances in her direction, she’d held her tongue. And she’d been waiting. They had all been waiting. She thought they would be here by now. (Joshua 2)
The Israelites were nowhere in sight. They were busy with other endeavors. Crossing the Jordan. Laying memorial stones. Engaging in a second circumcision. A number of days must have passed before they finally settled within sight of Jericho. Long days. Hard days. Not just for the Israelites. For Rahab. (Joshua 3-5)
Anxiously waiting for her faith to become sight, Rahab’s heart was taking a beating. Every day she gazed out the window past the scarlet cord to see if her rescue was coming. Every day she tuned out the noise of the inn to listen for the sound of battle. Every day her eyes were met with scrub brush and sand, her ears heard only silence. Every day she wondered if her faith was hopelessly misplaced. Yet she never moved the cord, never sent her family home, never spilled the secret. She never gave up. No. Rahab always kept the faith.
Why? Because her faith wasn’t placed in the shallow men of earth. It was firmly placed in the grand God of Heaven who she knew in her heart to be Lord of the entire universe. She’d already decided who she trusted. She had already cast her lot on God’s side. When things got rocky and it seemed like maybe those men wouldn’t come through, when the evil one whispered she’d never get out of Jericho alive, when the first moan of that battle horn sounded and she hadn’t yet been rescued, Rahab didn’t panic one bit. She kept the faith! She knew she could. Because Rahab’s faith wasn’t in those spies or their promise. Her faith was in the God who always keeps His promises. And He did. (Joshua 2:11-14; 6:17)
When the rams’ horns sounded their mournful wail announcing the impending doom of Jericho, Rahab had not one worry. As the parade surrounded the city for the seventh time on the seventh day, she felt no fear. She was covered. Just like the Israelites who painted their door frames with the scarlet blood of the sacrificial lamb to save the members of their household from the plague of death, the scarlet cord in Rahab’s window saved everyone in her house. No matter who they were, where they came from, or what their past entailed. It didn’t matter. Everyone inside the house laden with scarlet was saved. Every. Single. One.(Exodus 12:13-28; Joshua 6:22-25; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25)
You can be too. No matter what twists and turns you’ve taken to get to the place you currently are, regardless who says what about you or what you think of yourself, the scarlet blood of the Sacrificial Lamb of Calvary flows down to save every soul destined for destruction. You. Me. Everyone. It proves that the great God who keeps the earth spinning in space, is not too busy to keep His promises. It proves that every soul who comes in faith believing God will keep His word, will not walk away drooping in disappointment. It proves that, when God promised redemption, a rescue, a ransom for every hopeless, hellbent soul, He wasn’t just shaking hands and kissing babies. The blood of Calvary proves you can trust Him to keep His word. Every. Single. Time. (John 3:16; II Corinthians 5:15; Romans 4:21; Hebrews 10:23)
So. Do you? Do you trust Him? Really trust Him to rescue your disastrous life from destruction? Have you trusted Him enough to cast your messy soul into the scarlet, cleansing blood of the Sacrificial Lamb of Calvary? Are the doorposts of your heart painted scarlet in testament to the cleansing work of Jesus Christ? Is a scarlet cord of faith hanging in the window of your soul? Do you trust Him? Really trust Him? Is your faith in the finite, fallible, failing words of earthly men? Or is it firmly resting in the infinite, infallible, unfailing Lord who is God in heaven and on earth? (Psalm 103:4; Psalm 118:8; Hebrews 13:8; Jeremiah 17:7; Revelation 22:7)