Tuesday: New Allegiance
Daily Lesson for Tuesday 7th of October 2025
Read Joshua 2:12-21 and Exodus 12:13,22-23. How do the texts in Exodus help you understand the agreement between the spies and Rahab?
Rahab’s deal is very clear: life for life and kindness for kindness. The word cḥesed (Joshua 2:12), “loving-kindness,” has a richness of meaning that is difficult to express in one word in other languages. It refers primarily to covenantal loyalty, but it also carries the notion of faithfulness, mercy, benevolence, and kindness.
Image © Standard Publishing from GoodSalt.com
The words of Rahab also are reminiscent of Deuteronomy 7:12, where Yahweh Himself swore to keep His cḥesed toward Israel. “ ‘Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy [cḥesed] which He swore to your fathers’ ” (Deuteronomy 7:12, NKJV).
Interestingly enough, the same chapter (Deuteronomy 7:1-26) prescribes the ban (cḥerem) on the Canaanites. Here is Rahab, a Canaanite who is under the ban, and yet she claims, by her emerging faith, the promises that were given to the Israelites. As a result, she is saved.
The first image that inevitably comes to mind related to the conversation of the spies with Rahab is the Passover at the Exodus. There, in order for the Israelites to be protected, they had to stay inside their homes and mark the doorposts and lintels of their houses with the blood of the sacrificial lamb.
“ ‘ “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” ’ ” (Exodus 12:13, NKJV; see also Exodus 12:22-23).
“By obedience the people were to give evidence of their faith. So all who hope to be saved by the merits of the blood of Christ should realize that they themselves have something to do in securing their salvation. While it is Christ only that can redeem us from the penalty of transgression, we are to turn from sin to obedience. Man is to be saved by faith, not by works; yet his faith must be shown by his works.”—Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 279.
In that case, the blood was a sign that saved them from the destroying angel of God. As God spared the lives of the Israelites during the last plague in Egypt, the Israelites were to save Rahab and her family when destruction reached Jericho.
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What powerful gospel message can we find in these two stories? What gospel lessons can we take from them? |
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When you read the story of Rahab, you find that she was much more than a prostitute. She was an accommodation manager, a textile processor, and was well-versed in current events (even without the aid of social media). It could be said that her response to the spies was grounded in self-preservation, but it remains that it was an act of kindness that was still worthy of comment in New Testament times> James notes that:
And given our predisposition to salvation by grace, that verse grates with us a bit. James is making the point that the sort of grace and faith that saves also produces actions, even at the risk of losing one’s own life or freedom. It is a reminder that for all our theological discussion and reinterpretation, the real Gospel is about getting out there among the people and taking risks. What risks are we taking today to share kindness to others?