Thirtieth Page: Rahab – a Harlot in the Faith Hall of Fame!!

There may be pretty girls in the picture, but make no mistake – that doesn’t make spying any less dangerous.

Ask James Bond.

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Not his real name of course. That’s one guy who knows a lot about the cloak and dagger business – the 007 mostly prefers the Walther PPK, though – and scantily clad girls constantly emanating the “come hither” look!

Lest you get carried away totally on a different track by Bond’s well established talents with lead and lace, we must turn your attention to a biblical passage. “And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho” (Joshua 2:1). Now you can read through the whole story again and again till the cows come home, but you won’t find the name of the two guys. (Boy ain’t this intelligence business shrouded in secrecy?) So let’s just call them Isgent Alpha and Isgent Beta – Isgent being a portmanteau short for Israeli Agent.

Having been selected for the dangerous mission, Alpha and Beta began their preparations. And as any spy worth his salt will tell you, information is one thing you need – in advance. Like for instance, where to go, whom to approach, whither to stay and so on. Our friends bought a copy of the widely circulated “Jericho Times” and went straight to the Classifieds. Among the many alluring ads offering bed,breakfast and a bit of pleasure, there was one that stood out. “Rahab’s Joint” cunningly conjured up all sorts of wild imagery and it was right on top of the wall too. What is more, it had a

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rating ! Oh, she must have been good in whatever she did!

Having arrived well before the city gates closed, Alpha and Beta asked for directions and landed in the Joint where a pretty young thing  – with her mouth dripping with honey may be (check out Proverbs 5:3) – welcomed them with open arms.

The counter-intelligence – which had thrown a surveillance net over all such inns ever since the children of Israel parked themselves across Jordan  – clucked its tongue in unholy glee. The super-duper Israelite agents had grossly underestimated the information network of the king of Jericho. And while Rahab was not on the counter-intelligence payroll, this was as good as a honey-trap.

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Gotcha! they cried.

But good old bureaucracy intervened. By the time it took for the information to reach the King,  the Minister of Defence to convene an “urgent” meeting and for the King to send his men on a hunt , Rahab got wind of their plans and wised up.

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Despite plenty of evidence down the ages, the combination of beauty and brains in a woman, has always tantalized men. And it has been put to good use, for purposes ranging from winning battles for one’s country  through clever stratagem to liquidating a particularly odious tormentor by guile. Bond’s bevy of beauties in movie after movie well demonstrated this ability in hair-raising thrillers. In our own times the dazzler Christine Keeler is credited with easing out the Secretary of Defense, bringing down a conservative government in the U.K. and triggering a major scandal in cold war espionage.

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Joshua, stepping into Moses’s shoes, no doubt prayed as he sent out his agents though the prayer is not recorded for us. God led them straight to Rahab for she was the forerunner of all such women we were talking about. Sex might have been her trade, but she had little appetite for silly inanities and sweet nothings. Even as she pursued her vocation, she kept her ears open and asked pertinent questions. And she got to know the fantastic story of a nation on the march. She had heard all about the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, water from the rock, the  miserable fate of the two kings – Sihon and Og – of the Amorites (Joshua 2:10).  Like all of her townspeople, she knew the children of Israel had arrived and were all but knocking on the doors of Jericho. And it didn’t take her long to figure out that her latest clients were in fact, what you might call Israeli agents.

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She wasn’t surprised therefore when the search and ferret party arrived from the palace close on the heels of agents Alpha and Beta. With a judicious mixture of truth and lies, she sent it on a wild goose chase while she  bedded the agents on the terrace more or less under the stars. And she said unto the men, “I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you”(Joshua 2:9); and she went on to give them a refresher course in their own history complete with the acknowledgment that  “the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”(Joshua 2:11). Even as she delivers her dialogue, realization dawns on her that logically there cannot be more than one God, and she goes on in verse 12,” Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the Lord, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token”, appropriating the Lord God as her own.

Now this is a tailor made situation for the agents to mentally describe the denouement as பழம் நழுவி பாலில் விழுந்தால் போலாயிற்று. Had they been Tamil, they’d know that there is no other description that better fits the scene. For the benefit of those of you who are linguistically challenged (at least as far as Tamil is concerned) I can translate the saying as “the fruit rolled and dropped into the jar of milk” but it won’t make much sense and far less elicit a smile from you; language and culture are so closely linked, but that’s another matter.

That in short is the remarkable story of Rahab who was inducted into the genealogy of Jesus and finds a place in Matthew 1:5. Biblical history is made of seemingly random stories such as Rahab’s, for it truly is HIS STORY. Our little stories – with their pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow –  are somehow woven into the tapestry.