Joshua 2:1

1. Sent out Some render had sent, as in the margin, and suppose that the spies had been sent out some days before the events of the last chapter. But the vav consecutive with which this verse begins ( וישׁלח ) is properly rendered Then sent Joshua, etc., and a pluperfect rendering will not materially relieve the difficulty stated in Joshua 1:11. “Even if the spies had been despatched before the events narrated in Joshua 1:10-18, it would not be grammatically correct to render וישׁלח as a pluperfect; and much less is this allowable if such a supposition be unfounded.” Keil. ]

Shittim The plain of acacia shrubs at the foot of the mountains on the eastern side of the Jordan, directly opposite Jericho, in which Moses had last pitched the Israelitish camp. Numbers 25:1; Numbers 33:49.

Secretly The Masoretic conjunctive accent connects this word with saying, rather than with to spy, as is done in the English version; but the word is best understood as qualifying Joshua’s whole procedure. He communicated his orders to the two men, and also sent them out secretly in order to avoid betrayal by any evil-minded person in his own camp. All spying necessarily involves secrecy, and in this case the perilous business was a military necessity. An unexplored land was before them, and the number and spirit of the enemy, and his military preparations and plans, were utterly unknown to Joshua. Faith always uses means.

Even Jericho The command may be better rendered. Go view the land, and particularly Jericho. This ancient town, (called also the “City of Palm Trees,”) was situated in a plain of the same name about six miles west of the Jordan, near where it enters into the Dead Sea, and about nineteen miles northeast of Jerusalem. It was a walled city, rich and populous, having commerce with Babylon and the far East. According to Stanley it was the only important town in the Jordan valley, and its situation must always have rendered its occupation necessary to any invader from the east. “It was the key of western Palestine, as standing at the entrance of the two main passes into the central mountains. From the issues of the torrent Kelt, on the south, to the copious spring, afterwards called the ‘Fountain of Elisha,’ on the north, the ancient city ran along the base of the mountains, and thus commanded the oasis of the desert valley, the garden of verdure, which clustering around these waters has, through the various stages of its long existence, secured its prosperity and grandeur.” The modern village Rihah is, by some travellers, identified with ancient Jericho, and is described by Dr. Olin as one of the meanest and foulest of Palestine, containing about forty houses, with a sickly, indolent, and vicious population.

Came into a harlot’s house [Literally, into the house of a woman, a harlot. Their entrance into such a house would excite less suspicion, and, her house being upon the wall, (Joshua 2:15,) their escape from the city in case of necessity would be more easy. Knobel supposes that, as it was evening twilight when the spies reached Jericho, the time when harlots were wont to walk the streets, (Job 24:15; Proverbs 7:9; Isaiah xxiii, 16,) they met with Rahab at some corner and followed her to her house.] Josephus and other Jewish writers, and also some Christian commentators, unwilling to believe that these spies, intrusted with such a responsible mission, would have gone to a harlot’s house, or that Rahab, who married Salmon and became an ancestress of our Lord, and is commended by an apostle, could have been a woman of ill-fame, maintain that she was not a harlot, but a hostess or inn-keeper. But the Hebrew word זונה means always, elsewhere, a harlot, and is so rendered in the Septuagint and Vulgate. Also in the New Testament she is called emphatically the harlot, η πορνη , (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25.) And not only on philological grounds is the rendering hostess untenable, but oriental customs are against such an interpretation. In the east there are no proper inns, but as a kind of substitute there are khans or caravansaries (See note and cut at Luke 2:7.) It would have been a thing without parallel in that land for a single woman, or even a man, to be found keeping a public house. Rahab was probably unmarried; for though she had father and mother, brothers and sisters, (Joshua 2:13,) there is no hint that she had husband or child, and it is notorious that in the east rarely any but disreputable women remain single. On her falsehoods and her faith, see note on Joshua 2:5,

Lodged there Rather, they lay down there. Joshua 2:8 shows that they ascended the house top to pass the night there.