Rahab

[zeborah]

green_knight, this is possibly not what you had in mind when you asked when I'd start writing in my LiveJournal. :-) But for Mother's Day our minister decided to preach about the great things done by three women in the Bible, and much as I admire Ruth for loyalty in sticking with her mother-in-law, Mary for sacrificing her own plans in order to incubate Jesus, and Mary Magdalene for holding a whole conversation with the risen Jesus without noticing he wasn't a gardener until in exasperation he says "Mary!" (this ability our minister rather inexplicably named 'discernment') -- much as I agree with Shirley Murray's call to "Come, Celebrate the Women" -- I was a bit disappointed not to have mention of Deborah the war-leader, Esther the navigator of court politics, and perhaps a dip into the Apocrypha for Judith, that embodiment of Murray's "peace and unity" who seduced her way into bed with the enemy in order to chop his head off.

Happy Mother's Day. If you're not loyal, self-sacrificing, and debatably discerning, you're not a real mother, and possibly not a proper woman either.

I guess if it's cheating to pick and choose the meek and mild women out of the Bible, it's probably also cheating to pick and choose the wild and fiery ones too. So my plan (which may or may not be as successful as my plans to write in my diary every day when I was a teenager) is to talk about all of them, one at a time. It'd make sense to start with Eve, but I've just started a fresh attempt to reread the Bible right through, and because most of my attempts at this founder early in Exodus I started this one at Joshua. So I'll start at Joshua for this, too, partly because I like Rahab.

The book of Joshua is the inspiring tale of a plucky young nation which carves out its place in the world by "devoting to God" every man, woman, and child in the land they conquer. (My NIV helpfully explains that "the Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them".) The first woman we meet in Joshua is Rahab (Joshua 2-6). Rahab lives in Jericho, which the Israelites have their eye on, and she's been thinking a lot about their fearsome reputation and about how everyone in town is afraid of them. My NIV isn't clear on whether she's a prostitute or an inn-keeper; let's just say she's a woman of independent means. She doesn't appear to be a wife or mother herself, but she does have family, and she's worried about what will happen to "my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them".

Along come two Israelite spies to stay the night at her house. They're apparently not very good spies, because Jericho's king knows exactly where they are and asks Rahab to bring them out. Rahab, thinking about which way the wind's blowing, hides the spies and tells the king's messengers that they've already left town; in a sequence worthy of The Scarlet Pimpernel the messengers promptly set off in pursuit just as night falls and the gates are shut behind them.

Back in Jericho, Rahab cuts a deal with the spies. She gets them out of town, tells them where to hide, and doesn't tell anyone what they're doing; in exchange, when in a brilliant feat of applied acoustics the Israelites bring the walls of Jericho tumbling down, they spare her family. This is what her government would probably call "aiding and abetting the enemy" and "treason", but history is written by those who exterminate their enemies and so the book of Joshua doesn't mention such ugly words.

Loyalty to her family, if not to her hometown. Self-sacrifice in risking prison or death to make that deal to save them. Discernment in realising that this was necessary, that her town couldn't stand against the Israelites. Plus a good dose of spunk. Let's celebrate this woman too.

(In other news, I have spice racks, my cupcakes are baking, and I'm writing a battle-retrospective scene.)

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That was most interesting. I'm afraid that my knowledge of the Old Testement is sketchy to say the least. Our church, being Methodist, tended to focus more on the New Testement for passages suitable for sermons. There was the obligatory Old Testement reading each Sunday, but they seemed to select innocuous bits like the Psalms.

At least I never remember exciting tales of spies and feisty women, and I'm sure I would have noticed if there had been any. :)

[zeborah]

I'm glad it was interesting. I'm finding a whole lot more women as I keep reading, many of them also doing things that are perhaps not suitable for sermons. :-) I must make more posts.