Joshua 6:17

My Notes

What Does Joshua 6:17 Mean?

Joshua declares Jericho cherem — devoted, accursed, placed under the ban — meaning everything in the city belongs to God and is set apart for destruction. No one may take anything. No plunder. No souvenirs. The entire city is consecrated to the LORD through destruction. The Hebrew cherem (devoted thing) is the most extreme category of consecration: the city is so wholly given to God that no human hand may profit from it.

One exception: "only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house." The prostitute of Jericho — the woman whose profession placed her at the bottom of the moral hierarchy — is the sole survivor by name. Her qualification: "because she hid the messengers that we sent." She protected the spies (chapter 2). She chose Israel's God over Jericho's gods. And that choice — made in secret, at personal risk, by a woman nobody would have nominated for salvation — exempts her and her entire household from the cherem.

The irony is precise: the most condemned city in Canaan produces the one person who survives. The most morally compromised citizen of that city is the one who receives salvation. Rahab later appears in the genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:5). The harlot of Jericho becomes the great-grandmother of David and an ancestor of Jesus. The woman spared from the cherem carries the messianic line forward.

Reflection Questions

• 1.Rahab was the last person anyone would expect to survive the destruction. Where has God chosen to save the person everybody else had written off?
• 2.Her qualification wasn't moral reform — it was one courageous act of faith. Where do you need to stop trying to earn exemption and simply choose faith?
• 3.Rahab appears in Jesus' genealogy. How does a prostitute in the messianic line change your understanding of who God includes?
• 4.If your past doesn't determine your lineage but your faith does, what act of faith might be the turning point you haven't taken yet?

Devotional

The whole city is devoted to destruction. Every building. Every person. Every possession. Cherem — the total ban. And in the middle of the total destruction, one name is called out: Rahab. The harlot. The prostitute. The woman whose profession was the very thing the law condemned. And she's the only one who lives.

The gospel is hiding in Jericho's rubble. The person who should have been last on the list of survivors is the only survivor named. Not the priest. Not the elder. Not the morally upright citizen. The harlot. The one whose life was built on the thing the righteous avoided. And she was saved — not because she cleaned up her life, not because she reformed before the walls fell, not because she earned exemption through moral improvement — but because she chose to protect God's people when it cost her everything. She hid the spies. She chose faith. And the faith of a prostitute outweighed the pedigree of everyone else in the city.

Rahab ends up in Jesus' family tree. Let that settle. The woman pulled from the cherem — from total destruction, from the city under the ban — becomes a grandmother of the Messiah. The line that runs from Abraham to David to Christ passes through a Canaanite prostitute who made one courageous choice at the right moment. If your past disqualifies you in your own mind — if the life you've lived feels like it places you inside the ban, the destruction, the cherem — Rahab says otherwise. One act of faith. One choice to side with God's people. And the woman under the curse became the woman in the genealogy. Your past doesn't determine your lineage. Your faith does.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture