Who Was Rahab? Grace for an Outsider

Rahab's story is one of the Bible's most surprising pictures of grace — a Canaanite woman with a scandalous reputation who was saved by her faith and honoured forever. Here's who Rahab was.

An unlikely candidate

Rahab was a prostitute living in Jericho, the fortified city Israel was about to conquer. By every measure, she was an outsider — the wrong nationality, the wrong reputation, the wrong background. She was not the kind of person you'd expect to become a hero of faith. And yet she did.

A courageous faith

When Israelite spies came to Jericho, Rahab hid them and protected them, at great risk to herself. She had heard of the great things Israel's God had done, and she believed: 'for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.' Her faith led her to act courageously, choosing God's side over her own people.

Saved by faith

Rahab asked the spies to spare her and her family when the city fell, and they agreed, telling her to hang a scarlet cord from her window. When Jericho was destroyed, Rahab and her household were saved. The New Testament celebrates her: 'By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not.'

Woven into Jesus' line

The grace shown to Rahab went further than she could have dreamed. She married into Israel and became an ancestor of King David — and, generations later, of Jesus himself. A Canaanite prostitute was woven into the family line of the Messiah. That's the scandalous reach of God's grace.

Rahab was an unlikely outsider — the wrong nationality, the wrong reputation — who was saved by a courageous faith and honoured forever, even woven into the family line of Jesus. Her story is amazing grace in action: no one is too far outside, too disreputable, or too unlikely for God to save and use. Whatever your past, Rahab's story says grace can reach you and give you a place in God's family.