Barry Metz 01/15/17
Behind Enemy Lines
Joshua 2
Everyone likes a spy story. And it’s to a spy story we come in Joshua chapter 2 this morning. If you have your Bibles with you, follow along as I read the first three verses of the chapter....Joshua 2:1-3… Joshua 2:1-3.
2And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. 2And it was told to the king of Jericho, “Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” 3Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.”
You might remember from last week that at the start of the book of Joshua the people of Israel were camped in the plains of Moab just east of the Jordan River across from the Canaanite city of Jericho.
And God said to Joshua, “It’s time to enter the land.” Now here in chapter 2 Joshua’s first step is to send spies to view the land, especially Jericho. Now what are we to think about Joshua’s action? Moses, his mentor, was commanded by God to send spies into the land back in Numbers 13.[1] What are we to think about Joshua sending spies into the land? Is this evidence that he’s a good leader?[2] Is sending spies what a prudent general would do?[3] OR is this a failure of nerve, if not of faith, on Joshua’s part?[4] The text doesn’t tell us. We’re left to wonder.
And what are we to make of these spies? First, look again at the broad scope of Joshua’s orders to them in verse 1,“Go, view the land, especially Jericho.”You would agree that thescope of Joshua’s instructions is pretty broad wouldn’t you? But then look at what the spies did… And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. Are we to wonder if these men faithfully executed Joshua’s orders? Was this their best attempt to view the land, especially Jericho and accomplish the mission? Some suggest that Rahab was an innkeeper, a tavern owner.[5] I’m not sure. Admittedly the text is filled with mystery and innuendo.[6] All we can confidentlysay is that in the providence of God these men ended up….in Rahab’s house.
Secondly, how would we rate these men as spies? Look at verse 2. The king (or chief) of Jericho knows everything about them! He discovers their night arrival, their identity—they are Israelites, their hiding place—Rahab’s house, and their mission—to search out the land (literally they are here to dig up some information about the land). What kind of spies are these? It would seem that their mission is completely compromised and we’re only on verse 2. But then Rahab steps in.
While Chapter 1 features Joshua at center stage in the leading role, chapter 2 features Rahab in the leading role. Everybody in chapter 2 is anonymous except… Rahab. That’s not exactly accurate…Joshua is mentioned in verse 1 and verse 24but Rahab really steals the show in Joshua 2. The king of Jericho goes unnamed. The Canaanite servants of the king go unnamed. And the Israelite spies go unnamed. The spotlight in chapter 2 is on Rahab.
{With that in mind the book of Joshua is the first book of what are sometimes called the ‘former prophets’; there are six history books that are sometimes called the ‘former prophets’ by the Jews. Why does a Jericho prostitute get such a prominent place…on the very opening pages… of the Former prophets?”[7] We only have to go to the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1 to answer that question.}
Follow along as I read verses 4-7….
4But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. 5And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” 6But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. 7So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. And the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.
Notice in verse 4, Rahab admits that the men from Israel came to her. But she lies when she denies knowing where they were from. She again lies in verse 5; she does know where the men are. What are we to say about Rahab’s lying?[8] Well she’s really acting like a Canaanite, isn’t she? A Canaanite put between a rock and a hard place.
Rahab had hidden the spies up on the roof, verse 6 tells us, with the stalks of flax stored up there. Wild flax was scarce I read, so the fact that she had enough to hide the spies ‘suggests a providential stroke of good luck.’[9] But look at what she accomplishes in terms of protecting the spies. She convinces the men sent by the king…I can’t imagine how she did this… she convinces the men sent by the king….that the spies from Israelleft the city before the gate was closed. Pursue them quickly, she says, for you will overtake them.” Does this bother you a bit? Why don’t the men sent by the king search her house for the spies? We see this in 1 Samuel some. It seems that our author wants to portray the Canaanites as being ‘a few fries short of a Happy Meal’[10] They’regullible and incompetent![11]
WellRahab’s fabricated story seems to work and the men sent from the king go in search of the spies. We can imagine them heading east toward the fords of the Jordan some six miles away.
But there’s some tension in the story that we need to recognize at the end of verse 7……And the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out….the city gate has been shut and the spies are locked inside the city.
{If we were making a TV special of this story, we’d probably make a shot of the gates closing and being locked so that the audience would feel the tension for the spies. And then we’d have a commercial.}
As we get to verse 8, we come to the central portion of this chapter where the real meat is.[12] What has God been doing behind enemy lines before the spies arrived? He’s been at work in the hearts of the enemy.
8Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof 9and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.
Notice in verse 9, Rahab uses God’s personal covenant name—LORD--Yahweh. When did God introduce his personal covenant name? A little over 40 years previously in the vicinity of a burning bush in the middle of the dessert in Exodus 3. How did Rahab come to know it? And furthermore Rahab knows that Yahweh has given the people of Israel the land. It’s amazing that she would know that, don’t you think? I mean it’s one thing for her to see and hear that Israel had been victorious up to this point. “Did you hear that Israel defeated Og and Sihon?” But it’s another thing for her to hear and know that the God of Israel was behind it all. Rahabalsoshared with the spies that she knew that everybody in the land wasterrified of the people of Israel—“Our people live in terror of youand the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.”
What’s God been doing behind enemy lines even before Israel crossed the Jordan? He’s been fighting for Israel. He’s been systematically and powerfully demoralizing the Canaanites with heavenly psychological warfare.
This kind of warfare was something prophesied in the Song of Moses, Exodus 15. You remember that the song of Moses was sung right after God delivered the people through the Red Sea. And the song looks backward to that deliverance and it looks forward to the entrance of the Promised Land. The people were singing prophetically, looking ahead, about their journey to the Promised Land and they anticipated God going before them in power…
Sojust as they’d been delivered by God from Egypt, they anticipated that God would fight like that for them again until they had reached their home in the Promised Land….
This idea is repeated three other times in Exodus and Deuteronomy….
Exodus 23:27 (ESV) 27I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
Deuteronomy 2:25 …25This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’
Deuteronomy 11:25 …25No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
Oh the confidence the people of Israel should have had knowing that God was going to fight for them!
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There’s a scene from Gideon’s story in the book of Judges that parallels this idea of God fighting for his people.
You’re probably familiar with the story. Israel had over 30,000 men ready to fight the Midianites. And God said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand lest Israel boast and say “My hand has saved me!”[13] Twenty two thousand were dismissed and 10,000 remained. That was still too many—and you know the story—all but 300 were dismissed. And those 300 were given just what an army needs to win—trumpets, torches and jars.
The night before the battle God said to Gideon, “If you’re afraid--and we would add ‘you have that tendency Gideon’--go down to the Midianites camp with your servant and you shall hear what the Midianites are saying about you. Listen to Judges 7, verses 12-15; it’s really too good to paraphrase…
12And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance. What a powerful foe! 13When Gideon came (near their camp), behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 14And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.” 15As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.”
God was at work behind enemy lines…
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Well Rahab unknowingly revealed to the spies that God’s heavenly psychological warfare had done its work. The people of the land were terrified of the people of Israel and they melted away before them.
She continues in verse 10…
10For we have heard how the Lorddried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.
Rahab rehearses the might and power of Yahweh—“We’ve heard about the Red Sea and what your God Yahweh did there—he dried it up! We’ve heard about the two kings east of the Jordan River that you devoted to destruction.” By using the phrases ‘dried up’ and ‘devoted to destruction’, Rahab ‘anticipates two of the book’s main themes—first, Israel’s dramatic crossing of the Jordan on dry ground in chapter 4 and second the elimination, the decimation of Canaan’s inhabitants.[14]
But don’t miss the fact that the mighty acts of Yahweh were the basis of Rahab’s faith.[15] Isn’t this the normal way of coming to faith? One author says this…“Biblical faith is based on at least some knowledge, data or evidence….Faith is not just a warm cozy feeling about God. Faith grows, if at all, out of hearing what God has done for his people.”[16]
Isn’t that the way the gospel works today? We hear about the mighty works of God, we hear about God’s great and powerful work to deliver his people—that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and that he rose again---We hear about the mighty works of God and the Spirit of God applies that knowledge to our hearts and God regenerates us… we are bowled over… by grace we are saved.
Well look at verse 11….
11And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.
Rahab’s confessing the majesty[17] of God isn’t she? Yahweh isn’t some regional god to her—no he is God in the heavens above and on earth beneath! Again let’s not let this slide by without comment—this is a pagan, Canaanite prostitute with an “Israelite” confession on her lips. For Rahab, there is nowhere where God is not, including Jericho.[18] In fact, in saying that Yahweh is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, Rahab is in the best of company…
Mosesessentially said the same thing in Deuteronomy 4:39 ….39know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
…andSolomon too… O Yahweh, Solomon said, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath. 1 Kings 8:23.
You see ‘the truth of who God is and what he had done for his people had already penetrated Jericho, and when the Word of God gets into enemy territory, only two reactions are possible. Either there is faith in the greatness of the Lord and a casting of oneself entirely on his mercy or there is fear’ which leads one to continue to fight against God and his purposes.[19]
Rahab responded in faith.
Well at verses 12-13…
Verse 12-13 12Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that, as I have dealt kindly with you….again Rahab is using Yahweh’s personal covenant name and she’s using Israel’s covenant mercy term, the Hebrew word ‘chesed’— sometimes translated mercy or loyal love or lovingkindness…as I have dealt with you with loyal love, with covenant mercy, covenant kindness, with Yahweh’s lovingkindness…faithfulness, loyalty… you also will deal kindly (same word) with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign 13that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.”
Look at what she is saying…. “I want you two spies to make an oath by Yahweh, your God and my God?, that as I have expressed chesed to you, you will express chesed to my father’s house and I want you to give me a sign that you will save my whole family (notice she doesn’t mention a husband) and deliver us from death.”
“Swear to me by Yahweh!” she says. If a previous generation of Israelites didn’t know who Yahweh was—again remember Yahweh introduced himself to the Moses and the people of Israel in Exodus 3, and now a new generation is entering the land—if a previous generation of Israelites didn’t know who Yahweh was, how can this ‘strange woman in this backwater oasis know anything of Israel’s God, much less appeal to his authority through an oath![20]