Rahab The Mother Of Boaz

Hope of State of israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

Was Rahab the Harlot in the Messiah'due south Bloodline?

The modern, so-chosen Christian religionists unequivocally Turn down the blood-heir Yeshua the Messiah in favor of a bounder Messiah -- a usurper -- little different from the Idumean Herods who usurped the throne in the get-go century. The "Rahab" in Matthew 1:5 is Non the same equally the "Rahab" in Hebrews 11:31 and James two:25!

by HOIM Staff

We read in Matthew 1:five that "Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab..." Who, then, was this female antecedent of the Messiah who is stated to have married Salmon the son of Naashon, a prince of the Royal line of Judah -- sometime either earlier or subsequently the Israelites occupied the Promised Land?

Every Bible translator and commentator, without exception, associates her with -- or directly identifies her as -- "Rahab the harlot" who was saved alive from the massacre at Jericho. Every bit a upshot of this agreement several attempts have been made to,

(a) identify Rahab every bit an Israelite descendant of Serah, the daughter of Ephraim, who went to Canaan almost two centuries or so before the Exodus (i Chronicles 7:24) and built the strongholds of Beth-horon and Uzzen-sherah some 25 miles west of Jericho.

(b) clear her name of the term "harlot" by describing her as a "widow" or an "innkeeper" -- or as a "trader in flax."

These attempts, however, fall short because the term "harlot" is not merely employed by Joshua in the Old Testament, but besides by Paul and James in the New Testament 1,500 years later! One would call up that in that location had been aplenty opportunity since Joshua'south day to clear her name from that obnoxious designation had there been no justification for it. Moreover, Joshua himself was a ninth generation descendant of Ephraim (1 Chronicles 7:24-27) and would take been related to Rahab if she was, in truth, a descendant of Ephraim'south daughter Sherah.

If this were the case, not merely would Joshua accept given his two spies careful instructions for rescuing Rahab on the grounds of consanguinity, merely he besides would have cleared her name of whatsoever undeserved accusations of being a harlot had they not been true.

Joshua 6:25 states that Rahab was given land in the midst of Israel in return for risking her ain life past hiding the two spies that were sent to Jericho. Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (Book 5, chapter 1, sections 2 and 7), records the same story only neither he nor Joshua make whatsoever mention of a marriage taking place between this Rahab and Salmon. This deafening silence is, in itself, the strongest proof that no such spousal relationship always took place.

The Age Problem

Let the states become a pace farther and assume for a moment that Salmon did indeed marry Rahab the harlot within a twelvemonth or so of the fall of Jericho -- and that Boaz was built-in a twelvemonth or so after that. If such were the case, and so Boaz would have been about 115 years sometime when he married Ruth! On the other paw, if we assume that Rahab was almost 30 years of age when Jericho fell (and that Salmon did not marry her until 30 years or more than later) and so not only would Rahab have been at least 60 years of age and no longer able to comport children, merely Boaz -- even if born 30 years after the autumn of Jericho -- would still take been 85 years of age when he married Ruth.

As a event, all the show indicates that Salmon did not, in fact, ally Rahab the Canaanite harlot. If you research this matter in the Bible, y'all volition find that the Bible clearly states, in plain writing, that Salmon married a different woman altogether -- a woman with a different name and without whatsoever distinguishing appellation (obnoxious or otherwise) attached to her proper noun. It is the religious translators and commentators -- through error or agenda -- who have made the fault in translation and identified Salmon's wife as the harlot of Jericho.

Different Names

There are two completely different names Rahab in the Erstwhile Attestation that are both usually transliterated into the same name Rahab. We'll call them Rahab I (רחב) and Rahab Ii (רהב ):

The name Rahab I in the Bible ( רחב):

The famous Rahab is really Rachab (with a ch as in Bach or Loch). This Rahab is a harlot in Jericho. When Joshua sends two unnamed spies to Jericho to cheque out the boondocks, their surface area of reconnaissance is bars more often than not to the house of Rahab, who, we shall presume, also ran a youth hostel. When the townsfolk of Jericho pursue the men, Rahab hides them safely nether flax on the roof. When Israel destroys the walls of Jericho, Rahab'southward house, at present marked with a cherry-red cord, remains intact and Rahab and her household are incorporated into Israel.

This Rahab is referred to in the New Testament by Paul (Hebrews 11:31) and past James (two:25), and both call her Ρααβ , which shows that the Hebrew ch-audio became a guttural stop audio in Greek: Ra'ab. This Greek version of Rahab is too the one employed past the Septuagint's version of the book of Joshua. The Vulgate reads the Latinized Raab.

The proper name Rahab Ii in the Bible ( רהב ):

Only the Rahab who Matthew famously mentions in the genealogy of the Messiah, equally the mother of Boaz of Bethlehem (Matthew one:5) is spelled Ραχαβ: Rachab. Most commentators will written report that the Rahab in the Messiah'southward family line is the converted Rahab the harlot of Jericho, but that is not true considering Matthew uses the other version of the proper name Rahab (what we call Rahab II: רהב ). In English these names sound the same only in Hebrew and Greek they're as different as Johnny and Ronnie.

And if Rahab the harlot of Jericho had married someone important, such as Salmon, the great-grandfather of rex David (Ruth 4:20), we would have surely heard about it at some betoken in the fifteen hundred years or and then between Rahab of Jericho and Matthew. In Hebrews xi:31 Paul says that Rahab'southward religion kept her from perishing along with the rest of the ill-behaved townsfolk. If her survival would take given her the opportunity to become the ancestor of Yeshua the Messiah, Paul would have likely made a annotation of that as well. Information technology seems that Matthew isn't talking near Rahab of Jericho simply of an other, unknown Rahab.

Precise Identification

It has been shown time and time again that YEHOVAH God never uses two different words, or two different names in the same verse or context to refer to the same matter or person. The different words or names are ever put there to depict our attention to the fact that He is referring to different things or persons. With this in mind Matthew 1:5, Hebrews eleven:31 and James 2:25 patently cannot exist classified every bit existence "in the same context." Therefore, more positive and definitive methods must be used in these passages to identify the person mentioned precisely and exactly -- and to distinguish between one person and another. Thus, in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25, the reader is told explicitly that these passages refer to Ra'ab the harlot of Jericho by,

(a) stating her proper noun.

(b) repeating her designation equally a harlot.

(c) mentioning the activeness which she took to aid the 2 spies.

These are all positive marks of identification.

On the other hand, even so, in Matthew i:5 Rachab the married woman of Salmon is clearly distinguished from Any identification or association in any way with the harlot of Jericho, as follows:

(one) By the different spelling of her name in the "original" Greek,

(2) by the different pronunciation of her name,

(3) by the absence of any offensive designation attached to her proper noun and,

(iv) by the absenteeism of whatever reference to Jericho or any activeness that took place in that location.

Nor is the absence of whatsoever such additional information nearly Rachab designed to "cover up" possible unfavorable personal references to individual members of State of israel'south Royal Line and of the human ancestors of the Messiah in this genealogy. Anyone with any knowledge of the Bible knows that it does not shrink from stating unsavory "incidents" in the lives of Israel's famous people. This is ably demonstrated in the very next verse (Matthew i:6) by the cutting reference to Bathsheba -- not by recording her name, merely past bringing her name to mind only through her degrading act of infidelity with Male monarch David. Again, at that place is the story of Judah's seduction past Tamar as related in Genesis 38:11-30.

This shows that the "Rahab" of Matthew 1:v is definitely NOT the same person equally the "Rahab" of Joshua two and 6, Hebrews eleven:31 and James 2:25. Rahab the harlot of Jericho was Not the person who married Salmon and was Not the dandy-keen-grandmother of David and was NOT in the line of the Messiah.

The Bastard Factor

Besides specifying Canaanites in item as ineligible ancestors for the Messiah -- thereby linking whatsoever Canaanite beginnings in Rahab the harlot to a complete nullification of the Messiah's kingly claims -- we find that Ezra's and Nehemiah's Godly expulsions were applications of an even broader principle grounded in the Book of Deuteronomy. The principle past which Canaanite ancestry could non enter the Messiah's bloodline is a broader one set up against ANY tainting of the bloodline whatsoever.

Nehemiah directly cites Deuteronomy 23:iii-half dozen in separating all Ammonites and Moabites from Israel (Nehemiah 13:1-3), but the more fundamental law of YEHOVAH God around which this unabridged exchange principally revolves is Deuteronomy 23:2: "A BASTARD shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; fifty-fifty to his tenth generation shall he NOT enter into the congregation of the LORD."

The word "bastard" is, in the Hebrew (Masoretic) text, the discussion mamzer, which is a compound of mum (defect) and zar (foreign/alien). It is the same discussion which appears in Zechariah nine:six, where our modern Bible translators routinely render the term "mixed people," "mongrel people," "mongrel race," "mixed race," etc. The standard works of the lexicographers affirm the same: namely, Strong'due south Exhaustive Cyclopedia lists this Hebrew term as coming from "a root meaning to alienate; a mongrel." The Brown-Commuter-Briggs Lexicon confirms information technology as a reference to a "mixed population."

Only the common translation of mamzer in Zechariah ix:6 as "mongrel" proves that the translators know its foremost definition has to do with RACIAL ADMIXTURE because, all other things being equal, they could but as hands have rendered it "an inbred people," "an incestuous people," "an illegitimate people," or some other category of dubious heritage. But no translator has yet rendered it as such. Plainly, they accept the connotation of "mongrel" over "inbred" or "illegitimate" because the word "mongrel" is a stronger synonym for mamzer than is any other term. Thesaurus.com even treats "bastard" equally a elevation synonym for "mongrel"!

We encounter, therefore, the right estimation of the insulary law conclusively settled by Ezra and Nehemiah. When this law of Deuteronomy 23 was appear past Nehemiah, the entirety of the mixed multitude -- children included -- was separated from Israel (Nehemiah 13:1-3). These reformers -- with a mandate from YEHOVAH God -- understood this mamzer-prohibition, including its qualifications concerning Moabites and Ammonites, to require the annulment of all mixed families. Neither were permitted in the "congregation of the LORD"; mongrels (bastards) had no correct or inheritance in Israel.

Furthermore, the overarching narrative of the Israelite administration of the Canaanite ban shows State of israel repeatedly chastised by YEHOVAH God for their alliances, covenants and integration with Canaanites -- too as other non-Semitic peoples. This was irrespective of religious differences, for it occurred even when Ashdodites, Arabs and Ammonites professed organized religion in the God of State of israel.

Now since the Messiah upheld the rulings of Ezra and Nehemiah, it is frankly Impossible that he -- equally the heir apparent -- could have been mixed with strange blood, much less the SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDED blood of Canaanites. The bastard-prohibition vividly forbids Whatsoever Canaanite beginnings on his function. Information technology undoubtedly requires the Rahab that married Salmon to be a Hebrew; and this is no mere entreatment to i elementary anti-Canaanite marital prohibition (which would be sufficient), but is grounded in an even larger ethno-nationalist framework barring ALL mongrels from an inheritance in Israel.

The modern, then-called Christian religionists unequivocally Turn down the claret-heir Yeshua the Messiah in favor of a bounder Messiah -- a usurper -- little different from the Idumean Herods who usurped the throne in the showtime century. They have niggling else to say of the biblical Messiah, it seems, but "Excruciate him!"

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Proclaiming the Skilful News of the Shortly-Coming Kingdom of YEHOVAH God Hither On This Earth!

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