Jewish Gentiles
However, Rahab the prostitute and her father’s household and all she had, Joshua [a]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
Has lived – The Hebrew verb yāšab means “to sit, to remain, to dwell.” The NASB translation is close enough since the idea of this verse is Rahab’s permanent residence in Israel. But the translators have taken the liberty to make the grammar fit English expectations, and in the process they have obscured something very important. You see, this verb is a Qal vav-consecutive imperfect. That means it is like our present tense continuous, so it should be translated as “is living” in the middle of Israel to this day. Even Alter translates this as a past tense (“she has dwelled”) noting that the verse must refer to her descendants. But I suggest that there is something else here that requires a present tense consecutive imperfect.
The grammar itself suggests that Rahab dwells in the past, present, and future (vav-consecutive) in the midst of Israel. The sentence tells us that up to the day this text was written she was still dwelling in the midst of Israel. But the text was most likely written hundreds of years after these events, not as historical record but as a cultural justification. As Alter notes, “ . . . what is reported as the national past is grounded not in the factual historical experience of the nation but in the image of the nation that the guardians of the national literary legacy seek to fix for their audiences and for future generations.”[1] This perspective makes the grammar of the verb even more peculiar. If the passage was written decades later, why not express Rahab’s habitation as a past event like the English translations? Furthermore, the verb is a feminine singular, but the event must also include Rahab’s family, right?
Here’s my solution. The verb tense is vav-consecutive Qal because what Rahab represents actually does continuously reside in the midst of Israel. Rahab is the outsider, the Gentile of pagan origin, the condemned one who nevertheless finds a place among God’s people. And not just any place. As you recall, Rahab and her relatives were initially on the outside of the camp. Joshua moves her to the middle of the camp, surely a sign of total integration and acceptance. In fact, in Jewish legend, Joshua marries Rahab and that line produces king David (and eventually the Messiah). Rahab becomes Israel. The reason for the Qal verb form is that this idea, that Gentiles have an integral place in the midst of God’s chosen people, is a present-tense reality. Furthermore, there is not only a present place for the righteous Gentile. The imperfect form tells us that there will always be a place for the righteous Gentile. Israel is not just for Jews.
Jewish legend tells us that Rahab and her family converted to Judaism, but this is an anachronistic idea. There’s nothing in the text to suggest this. She is simply a Gentile who has a relationship with YHVH, and as such finds a welcome heart in Israel. Like an Egyptian woman who found God in the desert. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of Rahabs today.
Topical Index: yāšab, dwell, vav-consecutive, Qal, righteous Gentile, Joshua 6:25
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible Volume 2 Prophets Nevi’im, p. 4
It is a “familial” sense which conveys the truth that the “sons (children) of God” are constituted by their relationship to and with that only begotten “Son of God,” who, like Melchizedek, is “without genealogy”; yet the only begotten Son of God remains a priest (a mediator between God and man) forever. It is the Apostle John who offers a supernal truth before all facts:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made;
without Him nothing was made
that has been made. (John 1:1–3)
It is in this sense— by a gracious supernal familial relation to this Son of God— that the true children of God are so constituted by trusting God in faith of the Word of God as his promise given so as to be identified even as a new creation by the very Word of God made incarnate, who said, “the words I speak to you are Spirit and [they] are life (John 6:6b).
Indeed it is by the Spirit and Life of this Word of God that Rahab, and all those who, like her and her family, are incorporated— united in one body by faith— as the children of God who will always have a place, both now and forever. Hallelujah!
And he [YHVH] says, “It is trivial for you to be a servant for me, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will give you [my Servant] as a light to the nations, to be my salvation to the end of the earth.”
Thus says Yahweh, the redeemer of Israel, his holy one, to the one who despises life, to the one who abhors the nation, to the slave of rulers: “Kings shall see and stand up; princes, and they shall bow down, for the sake of Yahweh, who is faithful, the holy one of Israel, and he has chosen you.”
Thus says Yahweh: “I have answered you in a time of favor, and helped you on a day of salvation, and watched over you, and given you as a covenant of the people, to raise up the land, to give the desolate hereditary property as an inheritance, saying to the prisoners, “Come out!” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves!” they shall feed along the ways, and their pasturage shall be on all the barren heights.(Isaiah 49:6-9)