Joshua 2:1-7
Under the flax on the roof
The king sends word to bring the men out. She admits they came, says they left at dark and the gate is closing, and sends the pursuit towards the fords while they lie under stalks of flax.
Verse by verse
- 2:1
The two spies are not named. The passage also does not say that they engaged in sexual activity in Rahab's house.
- 2:4-6
Her claim that the men departed is contradicted by the explicit statement that she hid them on the roof.
- 2:6
The flax is laid out in stalks on the roof. That concrete detail explains the hiding place without proving that weaving was her sole occupation.
- 2:7
Fords are places where a river can be crossed. The pursuers head toward the Jordan rather than searching the hiding place.
The secret mission is known to the king by the second verse. The two men have scarcely entered Jericho before their safety depends on the woman whose house they chose. Rahab controls the exchange at the door, the hiding place overhead, and the false direction in which the search party runs. For this stretch of the mission, the spies contribute chiefly by remaining under the flax.
Her answer is a lie, and the Book of Joshua makes that unmistakable by placing the men on the roof immediately after she says they have gone. There is no need to turn the contradiction into a clever technical truth. Nor does the passage pause to settle every later argument about deception in war. It shows precisely whom she protects and whom she refuses to obey. The city's gate shuts on the pursuers' heels. The men they want are still inside.