Israel’s Open Heart
However, Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all she had, Joshua spared; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Joshua 6:25 NASB
Spared – English nuances often make big differences in translated Hebrew. In this verse, the Hebrew verb is ḥāyâ, a very familiar verb usually meaning, “live, have life, remain alive, sustain life, live prosperously, live forever.”[1] Robert Alter translates it as “kept alive,” sticking within the traditional umbrella of meanings. When the NASB translators use “spared,” they subtly alter the nuance, and that alteration makes a very big difference. If heḥeyah means “spared,” then it has the feel of making an exception and nothing more, but if the verb means “kept alive,” it not only means making an exception to the command to exterminate all Jericho, it also implies that Joshua made provision for the sustenance of the family. He kept them alive, not just on that day but over time. In fact, the rest of the verse provides added justification for this nuance. Rahab was brought into the midst of the camp and she is still there.
Several lessons emerge from this traditional reading of ḥāyâ. First, we realize that Joshua was under no obligation to grant the exception. The spies seemed to have forced the situation upon him by committing to the reciprocal promise without explicit approval. However, since the mission could not have been accomplished without the effort of Rahab, there is a sense in which Joshua is post-facto obligated to her. But he certainly is not obligated to sustain her or her family. The fact that he does is a testimony to the open heart of Israel, a heart which recognizes God’s choice of children outside the tribes of Jacob. Rahab put her life at risk for Israel. Israel must respond. The phrase “to this day” indicates that the attitude of welcoming the righteous Gentile is a permanent part of Israel. Rahab is long dead, but the action that Joshua demonstrated is not—and never should be. Israel is not exclusively Abrahamic. The idea of adoption into the Covenant community is found here and in many other places in the Bible. It isn’t new to the apostolic authors.
The other lesson is the contingency of divine commands. Moses is quite clear about God’s intention concerning the native tribes of the Land. “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to take possession of it, and He drives away many nations from before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God turns them over to you and you ]defeat them, you shall ]utterly destroy them. You shall not make a covenant with them nor be gracious to them” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2 NASB). Rahab falls among these people. Accordingly, no covenant nor any mercy is to be shown to her or anyone in her city. But mercy was shown. The commandment was not meticulously exacted. In fact, there was so much flexibility in this apparently explicit command that not only was she spared, she and her relatives were incorporated into Israel. How is that possible? Oh, yes, the problem is a bit more complicated since Rahab is in the genealogy of the Messiah.
Topical Index: Rahab, spared, kept alive, ḥāyâ, Deuteronomy 7:1-2, Joshua 6:25
[1] Smick, E. B. (1999). 644 חָיָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 279). Chicago: Moody Press.
