Bible Passage: Rahab Hides the Spies – Joshua 2:1-7 ESV

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Shadia Hrichi

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Shannon Popkin (00:01)
Shadia Harishi, welcome to Live Like It’s True.

Shadia Hrichi (00:04)
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Shannon Popkin (00:08)
It’s always fun to have another Bible study author in the house. So we’re super excited to have this conversation with you about the story of Rahab. But I just want to introduce our listeners to you real quick. So you are a passionate Bible teacher, an award -winning author, and a speaker. And you love to stir the hearts and minds of your audience through personal story, illustration, and unwavering confidence in the authority of God’s word.

Shadia Hrichi (00:26)
I’m sorry.

Shannon Popkin (00:36)
You are a girl after my own heart, I love it. So, and you hold a master’s in biblical and theology studies. Where did you get your degree from? Okay, and you are the author of several Bible studies, including Rahab, Tamar, Hagar, Legion, and Worthy of Love.

Shannon Popkin (01:05) So and you are from Northern California, so that’s lovely. What a nice, yeah.

Shadia Hrichi (01:19)
I’m a little spoiled. I mean, I’m originally from the East Coast, but now I’m on the West Coast. I’ve been here over like 25 years and yeah, I love the sunshine. I’m so spoiled.

Shannon Popkin (01:26)
Okay, yeah. Well, and it says you love to visit the ocean each week for a date with Jesus. My goodness, that sounds perfect. I would love that as well. I live close to Lake Michigan, so I kind of pretend it’s the ocean. It’s as far as you can see, you know, so. But I don’t get there on a weekly basis. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. So we’re gonna be talking about a woman who is on the outside of.

Shadia Hrichi (01:35)

I try, yeah, yeah.

Shannon Popkin (01:55)
God’s people, like in our day and age, that would be like an outsider to church, you know, like maybe she doesn’t go to church. She doesn’t, that’s just not even on her radar. Have you ever felt like an outsider Shadia? I don’t know you very well. So maybe this is a question that I don’t really even know how you might answer this, but oh good. Okay.

Shadia Hrichi (02:09)
Yeah.

Actually, it’s a great question. Because, yeah, I definitely, and I think that’s part of the reasons why I’m attracted to these, what I call kind of these messy stories in the Bible. But I didn’t grow up in the church. I didn’t grow up believing in God. I didn’t grow up with any real religion. My parents both immigrated from different countries. They were raised in different religions. My mom was raised Lutheran. My father, moderate Muslim.

Shannon Popkin (02:24)
Yeah.

Shadia Hrichi (02:40)
And my stepfather who joined the family, you know, when my parents, after my parents divorced, he was raised Jewish. So it’s like, yeah, all of this, you know, exposure, I would say, but none of them had faith. There was no faith. I didn’t grow up believing in God. And I became a Christian at the age of 30 and it just rocked my world. Rocked my world because I had made so many mistakes in my past. A lot of painful…

Shannon Popkin (02:46)
Oh my goodness, wow.

Wow.

Shadia Hrichi (03:09)
poor choices, shameful choices, and know, bad choices and so forth. And to recognize and come to find that there is a God that was watching over me and protecting me, even through what seemed like I’m alone and I’m hurting and so forth, God was actually there. So yeah, definitely can relate to feeling like an outsider.

Shannon Popkin (03:31)
Wow.

So what was your ethnic background then with your mom and dad?

Shadia Hrichi (03:38)
My father was from Morocco, so Arabic, and my mother was from Latvia, so she’s Latvian. Yeah.

Right.

Shannon Popkin (05:36)
and has given you a rich background and maybe a lens to see him through that girls like me don’t get to experience. I grew up in church. I grew up understanding. I asked Jesus to be my savior as a four year old. So I just, I don’t remember being on the outside looking in. And so I’m hoping you can help us with that. Can you give us, is there like a moment that you can remember where you were looking in on church people?

Shadia Hrichi (05:57)
Hmm.

Shannon Popkin (06:06)
you know, before you met Christ, is there, is there, you know, did you have an impression of what church people were like, or could you paint a scene where you’re looking in on the church from the outside?

Shadia Hrichi (06:17)
Yeah, I remember. I mean, there’s a couple moments that come to my mind. I remember one time, so I got saved at 30 just as a context. So when I was in college, I remember, and it’s only looking back now that I realized, oh, he was a Christian. You know what I mean? Like I didn’t get it at the time, you know, but we were in some class that was some kind of literature, you know, reading, we were reading books and like on philosophy or I don’t know, a bunch of things.

Shannon Popkin (06:33)
Yeah, sure. Uh -huh.

Shadia Hrichi (06:44)
And I remember him and I kind of having this like little debate going on about what was right, what was wrong, and you know, sex before marriage. Because I was living with my boyfriend at the time, who later became my husband. You know, we lived together for years. And he wasn’t just trying to be like just beat on me or anything, but like I was just exposed to like this whole different worldview. And I was like, wow, where does that come from? It was so foreign to me.

Shannon Popkin (07:13)
Uh, sir?

Shadia Hrichi (07:13)
It was truly foreign to me. My mom raised me like, oh, you’re gonna have boyfriends, you’re gonna have sex, let’s get you prepared. And that was at 14. So I remember having that kind of view like, wow, Christians are very conservative in their views. In other words, here’s a funny analogy. Do you remember the show Happy Days? Kind of just like happy days, right? Just…

Shannon Popkin (07:22)
Uh huh, yeah.

Yeah, uh -huh. Fancy, yeah.

Shadia Hrichi (07:42)
I felt like it was like that’s where they were living. Like they were living in a world that didn’t really exist. You know, like another reality. Like you’re living in an alternate reality. That’s just not how the world works kind of thing. You know, and yeah, that was kind of my one thing that comes to mind. And you know, when I was 30 and God introduced me to a group of Christians, and I was like, oh wow, these people are nice. They’re cool. They’re smart. They’re…

Shannon Popkin (07:57)
Yeah.

Shadia Hrichi (08:11)
And yet they believe in God and the Bible. And so I really had to reconcile with that. But yeah, it was… I didn’t know at the time, of course, I was the project in the sense that I was the only non -believer. Well, I was married at the time. It was both me and my husband. We were invited to this Bible study. It wasn’t even my idea to go. It was actually his. And we were the only non -believers in there.

Shannon Popkin (08:23)
Yeah.

Uhhhh

Shadia Hrichi (08:39)
I didn’t recognize it at the time, but God used it.

Shannon Popkin (08:42)
Wow, yeah, I think, you know, just this idea that it was so foreign, that’s a word that you used. And for the woman that we’re gonna look at, we need to see her as an outsider looking in, like this is not, this is completely foreign. She has not grown up in a culture that would have readily accepted God as their God. And so these concepts should be foreign. We should be approaching like,

anything that she knows about God or receives about God or wants from God, this should all surprise us as we as we look in on this story. And here on this podcast, we really focus on the literary aspects of these narratives. And there is a lot of to be surprised at in this story. There’s a lot that we should be. Wow, this is unusual. This is not this is not what we saw coming. Even if it’s a familiar story, I think it’s helpful to come back and look at it from that.

Shadia Hrichi (09:28)
Mm -hmm.

Shannon Popkin (09:40)
from that lens. So we’re in Joshua chapter two and it starts out saying, and Joshua the son of Nun, which my boys always would crack up as little boys, you know, when I would say, Joshua the son of Nun, ha ha ha. Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies saying, go view the land, especially Jericho. So what I wanna do before we jump into this story is kind of give some context. So,

Shadia Hrichi (09:50)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Shannon Popkin (10:08)
We have Joshua and we have these two secret spies that are going to view the city of Jericho. So tell us the history first of all of Joshua. He is this new leader after Moses dies. But what else do we know about Joshua?

Shadia Hrichi (10:24)
So what we know about Joshua is when Moses was leading the Israelites, you know, after the escape from Egypt and their wandering in the deserts because of their rebellion. Well, before that rebellion took place, Moses had sent 12 spies into the land and Joshua was one of the two of the ten who actually believed in God and trusted in God and tried to encourage the people to enter the promised land under the leadership of Moses.

But the people rebelled and actually wanted Joshua and the other spy at that time, which was Caleb. They wanted them stoned to death. Like that’s how rebellious the people were. Like, oh, it’s too scary. It’s too big. We’re not going in. And so then God judges, you know, the Israelites, well, you’re going to spend, you know, 40 years in the wilderness for this rebellion.

And Moses, you know, eventually is, you know, Joshua raises up, you know, God is raising him up, but Moses is raising up Joshua, sort of his assistant, and he becomes, you know, after Moses dies, Joshua is the new leader of the Israelites, and the 40 years have passed, and finally, and all the generation, except for Joshua and Caleb, who rebelled against God, had passed away, and a new generation was raised up. And so now, under the leadership of Joshua, yeah, they’re ready to enter the Promised Land.

Shannon Popkin (11:38)
Okay, so.

Yep, so they’re headed into the promised land. And you can imagine that Joshua is like, all right, we made this mistake once, you know, sending spies into this land and it cost us 40 years and we’re gonna take care to use some discernment, use some discretion here. So when it says that he sent two men secretly, he’s not sending 12 this time, he’s sending two and he’s sending them, you know,

Shadia Hrichi (11:49)
Yeah, exactly.

Right? Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (12:09)
into the same land that he went into like 40 years ago as a young man. And he’s one of the oldest people going in because everyone except for him and Caleb have died. Everyone is at 20 years and up. So he’s one of the only elders in Israel. And he is using all this discernment. I was like, all right, we’re sending two spies in. And I think secretly means you’re going to come back and talk to me before you spread this report. Yeah. Yeah.

Shadia Hrichi (12:25)
Mm -hmm.

Yes, yes, exactly. And that’s exactly as you just pointed out. So Joshua was very discerning, very cognizant of what happened before. And he’s like, he’s just gonna take his two most trusted men and let them come back to him personally.

Shannon Popkin (12:53)
Yeah, I was just imagining, I wonder if it was maybe his son. I don’t know. Like, who would you trust most? I don’t, who knows, but they aren’t named, which I think is interesting in this story. These two spies aren’t named, but what do we know? Like, think of it through the eyes of these two spies. What do we know about them? What have they lived through?

Shadia Hrichi (12:59)
Yeah.

So, I mean, so they’re young, as you had pointed out. They’re the next generation. They had lived through some portion of this, you know, 40 years. So maybe they’re 20, you know, whatever they are. They had witnessed, you know, manna from heaven. They had witnessed God’s providing guidance in the wilderness, the fire at night, the cloud by day. So they had seen firsthand God’s miraculous provision for His people.

And they would have heard and learned all about the promises that God made to Abraham to give them the land. And so you would imagine, especially since Joshua, this godly man, choosing these two, we would, you know, these are men of integrity, God, what he would have chosen. And so these would have been men that very likely were extremely eager to see the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and to have the land of their own, you know, right? At this time, they’re nomads that they have no land, no…

Shannon Popkin (14:00)
Yeah.

Shadia Hrichi (14:09)
you know, no, no homeland really. And so, yeah, you could just imagine that.

Shannon Popkin (14:11)
Yeah, yeah, like you put them at age 20. I don’t know, you know, that if they were 20, that means that they’ve been born in the wilderness. Like they haven’t ever known a homeland and they are anxious for God to keep these promises. And so here they are on this reconnaissance mission. They’re here to gather intel in this walled city of Jericho. And these are their enemies. They’re gonna be infiltrating. So.

Would you go ahead and read then, let’s pick up right after I left off, through verse, let’s go through verse eight.

Shadia Hrichi (14:50)
Okay, so he sends them into the…

Shannon Popkin (14:52)
No, I’m sorry. Seven. I meant, let me say that one more time. Could you read right where we left off through verse eight of of Joshua two and you’re reading from the ESV translation? OK.

Shadia Hrichi (14:57)
Mm -hmm.

I am, yes. So it says, and they, meaning the spies, they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land. Then the king of Jericho said to Rahab, saying, Bring out the men who come to you who entered your house. They’ve come to search out all the land. But 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.

And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, they went out, the men went out. I don’t know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, she will overtake them. But, and so that’s what she says to the soldiers at her door, the messengers from the king, and then it continues. But 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. And so the men pursued after them, meaning the spies, 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.

Shannon Popkin (16:02)
Okay, so their spy mission is not going so well. They’ve just entered the city and it’s day one and they, you know, everybody’s onto them. I don’t know if they weren’t disguised well enough. They didn’t, maybe it was their accents, who knows, but they’re not doing very well. And so they enter the home of Rahab and the king has sent these messengers, you know, to her door.

Shadia Hrichi (16:06)
Ahahaha!

Shannon Popkin (16:31)
And so what is interesting or surprising, like when we’re seeing what’s happening here unfolding?

Shadia Hrichi (16:37)
Yeah, yeah. Well, if I could maybe could I back up and just provide one of the things that surprised me if we can pause and just take a look at like what’s happening in the bigger context of it is why is Rahab’s story here in the first place? So if you think about it, they’re on the edge of the promised land. They’ve been waiting for generations and generations and generations for these promises to be fulfilled hundreds of years because the promise is originally made to Abraham.

here they are literally standing up and they already blew at once right so it’s like here’s our second chance they are on the edge of the promised land and god decides to put this whole thing on hold to tell us the story of rehab that by itself i mean because the first question we have to ask is like why is this story in here because

Shannon Popkin (17:28)
Yeah, and I think it’s surprising also because like what we’re gonna see is they’re already caught. They’re not really gathered. They don’t get a chance and in none of the information that they gather, like we know the story of Jericho, what happens is they go around seven times. That is not dependent on the information gathered here. So I completely agree with you. This story, they think they’re there to spy out the land. They think they’re there to gather info and they do get some information from Rahab.

Shadia Hrichi (17:36)
Yeah.

Yes.

Shannon Popkin (17:57)
But it’s not really dependent on, this is not the reconnaissance mission that they think. So why is it included? What do you think?

Shadia Hrichi (18:04)
Yeah, well, okay, so what it is is there’s, you know, the whole idea of this conquest of the promised land is, you know, key and a huge element of God’s, you know, working through his people, demonstrating his faithfulness, giving them the land, creating a people for himself and all of that. And to pause and tell us about this one prostitute, as you had just shared, there was no strategic or military information that the spies bring back.

to Joshua if we were to read through the whole story. They bring back basically Rahab’s words, which we’re gonna come to shortly, that the people are in fear of you and so forth, but nothing militarily, nothing strategic. And so there has to be another reason. Why are we told about Rahab’s story? Because it could have just simply skipped over. You know what I mean? Like he sent two spies, they learned nothing, we cross over, right? But no.

The reason is because as we’re going to get to in the verses to come, Rahab has faith. She has come to recognize the Israel God as the one true God. She makes this profound statement of faith in verses 9 through 11, which we’ll come to. Yeah. Yeah, okay. In the meantime, she’s hiding the Israelite spies. She’s putting her life at risk. She’s going head to head with the…

Shannon Popkin (19:19)
Yeah, let’s not give it away yet.

Shadia Hrichi (19:30)
with the king of Jericho, his soldiers, at her door. I mean, this is extraordinary that she would be willing to put her life at risk. And so there is this, yeah, go ahead.

Shannon Popkin (19:41)
So let’s come back to that thought here in a second. But yeah, so let’s do the big picture and then zoom in on what’s surprising about what Rahab did. But yeah, the surprise first is that the story is even included, like we’ve talked about. And I think up until now, as we look at what’s happening through the story of the Bible, we’re learning about a God who makes promises and a God who keeps his promises to his covenant people. But now we’re learning something about what…

Shadia Hrichi (19:44)
I get so excited, I know, I’d keep going.

Yes.

Shannon Popkin (20:10)
God thinks of the outsider. And really that’s a question all throughout the Bible. And God kind of holds the suspense throughout all of the Old Testament leading to the New Testament. I mean, really what the impression you get, in large part from the Old Testament is that God kind of plays favorites. He chooses one couple and pours all of his blessing on them. And yet you and I are part of the outsider group.

Unless, I mean, maybe you have some Jewish blood. I do not. And so I would have been, if I lived in these times, I would have been seen as an outsider. And so as I approach the Bible, I’m asking like, well, what does God think of me? What does he think of me, the outsider? And we get these little glimpses, just a few stories sprinkled in and Hagar is one of them. We’re learning what does God think of the outsider? What is his heart toward them? So go ahead.

Shadia Hrichi (20:57)
Absolutely.

And remember when God was blessing Abraham, he specifically told him, through you all the nations will be blessed. So like the gospel was right from the beginning. Yeah, but he…

Shannon Popkin (21:13)
Yes, that’s our glimpse. That’s our glimpse. Yeah, I just wrote a study on the life of Abraham and it’s it’s like there is just this little glimpse at what

Shadia Hrichi (22:22)
that the fact that God would rescue a prostitute? Is that what you’re…

Oh, Rayhab.

that she would hide the spies and so forth.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you know, one of the things, I mean, until we get to the next verses where we hear from her, you know, at this point in the story, if this is all we know, you know, it would be extremely surprising, you know, that God would choose a prostitute. At the same time, a curious aspect of the story that I just wanted to mention was,

It says in verse one that when you read that the men were sent from Shittim, which is the city where the Israelites were camped, waiting to enter the promised land. Well, if we read Numbers 25, again, all the scriptures all connected, in Numbers 25, it talks about what happened at Shittim, which is the Israelites began, literally the words are, whoring with the daughters of Moab, turning to idols, rejecting God.

That’s what’s happening with God’s people while this prostitute in Jericho is actually turning to faith. So you have this dramatic contrast going on.

That’s okay. I heard the audio was glitching just a little bit, but my button is still showing that we’re recording, so I don’t know.

You want to stop and start over? Okay.

That’s okay.

Shannon Popkin (25:01)
I need to plug my computer in. I’m so sorry. Hold on, let me grab my cord. I didn’t realize it wasn’t plugged in. I was traveling, which is why everything was not where it needed to be.

Shadia Hrichi (25:12)
Yeah. Mine is mine. Nothing has changed on mine.