Righteous Righteous Rahab of Jericho

CRITICAL: corrected a template artifact in the life-years field, "I-XV century" — the correct era, by tradition, is the time of Joshua's conquest of Canaan, approximately the 15th-14th centuries BC. Rahab has no individually fixed feast day — she is commemorated collectively on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers and the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, movable feasts before the Nativity of Christ.

Rahab was a resident of Jericho, described in Scripture as a harlot, who sheltered two Israelite spies sent by Joshua to reconnoiter the city before the conquest of Canaan (Joshua 2). She hid them among stalks of flax on her roof, and when the king of Jericho's men came searching for them, she misdirected the pursuit, allowing the spies to escape. In gratitude, they swore to spare her and her household when the city fell, instructing her to mark her house with a scarlet cord in the window (Joshua 2:18, 6:22-25) — a sign later interpreted by Christian tradition as a type of salvation through faith and of the saving Blood of Christ.

When Jericho's walls fell and the city was destroyed, only Rahab and her family were spared, per the spies' oath. She subsequently converted, married an Israelite — by tradition, Salmon, a prince of the tribe of Judah — and became the mother of Boaz, entering thereby into the genealogy of King David and, through him, of Christ Himself (named directly in the Savior's genealogy, Matthew 1:5). The New Testament twice points to her as a model of righteousness: Hebrews 11:31 praises her faith, through which she "perished not with them that believed not," and James 2:25 calls her justified by works, alongside Abraham, for receiving the spies and sending them out another way.