For her kindness to them she had asked that when the city should be taken, her life and the lives of all that belonged to her should be spared, and it was agreed that she should hang out her scarlet line at the window from which the spies had escaped.
The event proved the wisdom of her precautions. The pursuers returned to Jericho after a fruitless search, and the spies reached the encampment of Israel in safety. The news they brought of the terror of the king and citizens of Jericho doubtless inspired the Israelitish host with fresh courage, and, within three days of their return, the passage of the Jordan was effected.
No one could have been more interested than Rahab during those eventful days. Perhaps, from the window of her dwelling on the city wall, she saw the waters of the Jordan piled on each other, and stretching back over the plain as far as the eye could see—a sight she had never seen, and equal to the dividing of the Red Sea. Toward evening she saw the advance guards of Joshua’s host, and then the white-robed priests bearing the ark, followed by the army and people, and encamping at Gilgal, within two miles of Jericho, and in full view of the city.
After having carefully reviewed her household to assure herself that her father and mother, brothers and sisters, were all there—for this was the covenant she had made with the spies—she probably seated herself at the window from which hung the scarlet cord, to watch the strange procession that marched around the city seven days. Each morning it came filing up from Gilgal in solemn silence, except as the white-robed priests blew their trumpet-blasts.
No one can tell what risk Rahab took, or what indignities she suffered in convincing her relatives that they must be in the covenanted place when the city fell. On her part it was a beautiful faith. Perhaps she recounted to them the ten awful plagues that fell on the Egyptians, the deliverance of His people from the house of bondage, the disaster to Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea, the opening of streams in the desert, the nightly dewfall of food, the lofty column of cloud that shaded and led by day, and the pillar of fire that kept them safe from night enemies, human and bestial. All this she told to the assembled household as the ground of her faith, with which she would inspire them. No doubt this woman of Jericho, sick at heart on account of her own past life, and the wickedness of her city, thirsted for a fuller knowledge of the true and holy God whose name she hardly dared to take on her sin-polluted lips, and yet, strange as it may seem, she had the strength and honesty to succeed in the preaching of righteousness to her friends.
Day after day she watched the strange procession marching around the closely shut and guarded city. Joshua and the soldiers were at its head; then came the priests with their trumpets, and after them the Ark of the Covenant, hid from view with coverings, and carried reverently on men’s shoulders, while soldiers guarded it from real dangers.
Jericho breathed a little more freely when it saw that the strange desert people marched around the city day after day without striking a blow; but Rahab’s faith held steady, and the scarlet cord swung from her window. That cord may have meant to her the blood of the Redeemer cleansing from sin. No doubt, like Moses, she knew the meaning of the “reproach of Christ.”
The seventh day she was found early at her window, with a sense of completeness in her obedience and faith. Again the Hebrews filed forth from their camp and marched around the city; but this time they kept on till they had gone around the wall six times. The seventh round, the voice of the old captain at the head of the host rang along the line—“Shout! for Jehovah hath given you the city.”
THE FALL OF JERICHO.