RAHAB

Many are the are times when LJG and I will be talking and ask each other questions about things of the Bible. Yesterday she was telling me how Jesus could be traced back to Rehab, I spoke before I thought and said PROVE IT. We are so used to having to have facts to back up everything. The following is her answer to me. Hopefully you can see why she is my right hand, and why I thank God daily for her in my life. Without her none of this would be possible. So what follows is my LJG's answer to how Jesus is related to Rehab. I hope you enjoy.
Subject: RAHAB


Joshua 2
Rahab had heard of the miracles wrought on behalf of Israel, and had become convinced that Israel's God was the the True God (10,11). And when she met the spies, she decided, at the risk of her life, to cast her lot with Israel and their God.

She may not have been as bad as the word "harlot" now implies. She lived among people without morals. Priestesses of the Canaanite religion were public prostitutes. Her profession was considered by the people among whom she lived, as honorable, and not disgraceful, as it now is among us.

Rahab married an Israelite named Salmon (Matthew 1:5). Caleb had a son named Salmon (1 Chronicles 2:51). She married into a leading Family of Israel. She, thus became ancestress of Boaz, David and of Christ. She is named among the heroes of Faith (Hebrews 11:31).

Rahab, (Hebrews Rahab; i.e., "broad, " "large"). When the Hebrews were encamped at Shittim, in the "Arabah" or Jordan valley opposite Jericho, ready to cross the river, Joshua, as a final preparation, sent out two spies to "spy the land." After five days they returned, having swum across the river, which at this season, the month Abib, overflowed its banks from the melting of the snow on Lebanon. The spies reported how it had fared with them (Joshua 2:1-7). They had been exposed to danger in Jericho, and had been saved by the fidelity of Rahab the harlot, to whose house they had gone for protection. When the city of Jericho fell (6:17-25), Rahab and her whole family were preserved according to the promise of the spies, and were incorporated among the Jewish people. She afterwards became the wife of Salmon, a prince of the tribe of Judah (Ruth 4:21; 1 Chronicles 2:11; Matthew 1:5). "Rahab's being asked to bring out the spies to the soldiers (Joshua 2:3) sent for them, is in strict keeping with Eastern manners, which would not permit any man to enter a woman's house without her permission. The fact of her covering the spies with bundles of flax which lay on her house-roof (2:6) is an `undesigned coincidence' which strictly corroborates the narrative. It was the time of the barley harvest, and flax and barley are ripe at the same time in the Jordan valley, so that the bundles of flax stalks might have been expected to be drying just then" (Geikie's Hours, etc., ii., 390).

ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTE: Dr. John Garstang, director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and of the Department of Antiquities of the Palestine Government, excavated the ruins of Jericho (1929-36). he found pottery and scarab evidence that the city had been destroyed about 1400 BC, coinciding with Joshua's date, and, in a number of details, dug up evience confirming the Biblical account in a most remarkable way.

"The wall fell down flat" (20). Dr. Garstang found that the wall did actually "fall down flat." The wall was double, the two walls being 15 feet apart; the outer wall, 6 feet thick, the inner wall, 12 feet thick; both being about 30 feet high. they were built, not very substantially, on faultry uneven foundations, of brick 4 inches thick and 1 to 2 feet long, laid in mud mortar. The two walls were linked together by houses built across the top, as Rahab's house "on the wall."

Ruth 2
Boaz was the son of Rahab, the Jericho Canaanitish harlot (Joshua 2:1), Matthew 1:5). Thus David's great grandmother was Moabite, and his great grandfather half Canaanite; outside blood to form the Chosen Family within the Chosen Nation; foregleam of a Messiah for All Nations.

About a mile east of Bethlehem is a field, called "Field of Boaz," where, tradition says, Ruth gleaned. Adjoining is Shepherds' Field," where, tradition says, the angels announced the birth of Jesus. According to these traditions, the scene of Ruth's romance with Boaz, which led to to the formation of the Family that was to produce Christ, was chosen of God, 1100 years later, as the place for the Heavenly Announcement of Christ's Arrival.

Ruth 3, 4
Under the Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, there is a room in which, it is said, Jesus was born. An old tradition says that the same room was part of the ancestral home of David, and before David, of Boaz and Ruth. Thus, according to this tradition, Boaz took Ruth to be his bride, and started the Family that was to bring Christ into the world, in the very same room in which, 1100 years later, Christ himself was born.

The Genealogy (4:17-22), showing Ruth's son to be Obed, Obed's son to be Jesse, and Jesse's son to be David, is the thing for which the Book of Ruth was written. Thenceforth Old Testament thought centers around the coming King of Kings, to be born in David's line.

He was a rich landowner who noticed Ruth the widowed Moabite daughter-in-law of Naomi, a relative of his, gleaning grain from his fields. He soon learns of the difficult circumstances her family is in and Ruth's loyalty to Naomi. In response, Boaz invites to her to eat with him and his workers regularly as well as deliberately leaving grain for her to claim while keeping a protective eye on her.

Eventually, Boaz and Ruth strike up a friendship which leads to Ruth asking him to marry her. Boaz accepts, but cautions that there is a family member who has a superior right to her hand in marriage. However, he arranges a meeting with the relative and convinces him to buy Naomi's husband's land while forfeiting his right to marry Ruth to avoid complicating his inheritance with his existing heirs.

Although Boaz is noted to be much older than Ruth in the Biblical account and he marries her for Naomi's sake, most dramatic adaptations have Boaz as a handsome young man so as to enhance the romantic nature of the story.

Their son was Obed, father of Jesse, and grandfather of David.

Boaz in the Rabbinic Jewish tradition

In the Talmud, some rabbis identify Boaz with the Judge Ibzan of Bethlehem (Judges xii.8). A legend is given that he lost all his sixty children during his lifetime because he did not invite Manoah, Samson's father, to any of the marriage festivities in his house. For, since Manoah was at that time without children, Boaz thought that he need not consider on such occasions a childless man who could not pay him back in kind (B. B. 91a).

According to the Talmud, Boaz was a just, pious, and learned judge. The custom of using God's name in greeting one's fellow-man (Ruth ii. 4) received the approval of even the heavenly court (Babylonian Talmud Mak. 23b; Yerushalmi Talmud Ber. ix. 14c; Midrash Ruth Rabbah to ii. 4).

The midrash Ruth Rabbah states that being a pious man, Boaz on his first meeting with Ruth perceived her conscientiousness in picking up the grain, as she strictly observed the rules prescribed by the Law. This, as well as her grace and her chaste conduct during work, induced Boaz to inquire about the stranger, although he was not in the habit of inquiring after women (Midrash Ruth Rabbah to ii. 5; Shab. 113b).

Boaz was especially friendly toward the poor stranger during the meal, when he indicated to her by various symbolic courtesies that she would become the ancestress of the Davidic royal house, including the Messiah (Ruth R. to ii. 14; Shab. 113b). As toward Ruth, Boaz had also been kind toward his kinsmen, Naomi's sons, on hearing of their death, taking care that they had an honorable burial (Ruth R. to ii. 20).

In the conversation that followed between Boaz and Ruth, the pious proselyte said that, being a Moabite, she was excluded from association with the community of God (Deut. xxiii. 4). Boaz, however, replied that the prohibition in Scripture applied only to the men of Moab, and not to the women. He furthermore told her that he had heard from the Prophets that she was destined to become the ancestress of kings and prophets; and he blessed her with the words: "May God, who rewards the pious, also reward you" (Targ. Ruth ii. 10, 11).

love you

God's Blessing to each of you,
LJG/rECj