| Spying on the Enemy | Landlessness and Prostitution |
The action begins when two spies are dispatched to Jericho. However, the story isn’t about the spies. Rather, it’s about the woman, Rahab, a prostitute, who figures as one of Jesus’ ancestors (Mt. 1:5). She is the central figure. Her statement of faith in Yahweh (2:9-11) frames the whole Book of Joshua.1 Brazilian biblical scholar Carlos Dreher, who teaches at the Lutheran seminary in San Leopoldo, calls this passage and the woman Rahab the first clue to unraveling the whole story of Joshua and the conquest of the Promised Land.2 Why was she so important? Why does the story begin with her?
The spies went immediately to Jericho and "entered the house of a prostitute" and "spent the night there" (v.1). When the king of Jericho found out, Rahab hid the spies. She covered for them, and then got them safely out of the city--all at considerable risk to herself and her family. The Israelite spies were forced to depend on the courage and initiative of a Canaanite woman!3 In return for her help, the Israelite spies swore to spare her and her kin.
The agreement followed a confession of faith and statement of salvation history* by Rahab (vs. 9-11). Rahab was not an Israelite follower of Yahweh. Nor was she morally pure. Yet she, as Boling points out, "is the first one to recite saving history in the final edition of the book."4 She is the key person as the conflict begins.
As a prostitute she was a low class, socially outcast person. Although tolerated, prostitution was viewed negatively in the ancient Near East.5 She was used for her services, but hardly included in the city’s aristocratic social circles. She was also landless. She was a poor woman living in the city wall. It is quite possible that her poverty and landless condition led her to her profession. She needed money to support her parents and other family members. Dreher concludes:
It is probable, therefore, that Rahab had social motives for being indignant at the dominant class in Jericho, and also for taking a risk to better her own luck in life by taking sides with the rebel movement. This explains Rahab’s conversion to Israel and its God. She believed that the social model presented by this emergent group could mean an improvement of the conditions of life for her and her family. The opportunity to free herself from the oppression she experienced in the city, put her decidedly on the side of the group of spies.6
Being without land or having land parcels too small on which to make a living, causes severe social problems. It deprives traditional farmers of their means for making a living. Unemployment, massive migration to cities, alcoholism, and broken families are just some of the results. Another is prostitution.
The relationship between not having land and prostitution is very old. It is still very much a part of today’s world. For traditional farmers and Indigenous Peoples, losing land means certain poverty. Prostitution of wives and daughters is a means of survival for the whole family. This relationship has been studied in many parts of the world. Perhaps nowhere is it more evident than in Thailand.
Thai journalist Ann Danaya Usher, a specialist in environmental politics and health issues, has investigated the connection between land, ecological destruction, and prostitution. She asked village head woman Khru Noi why some rural women became prostitutes.
"First, the forest died...," she replied.
Khru Noi explained that the forest provided almost everything the people needed. When logging companies began cutting the trees, local people were pushed aside. Roads were built. Dams were constructed to irrigate large commercial farms. When the people lost the forest, they lost their livelihoods. In order to have an income, men left for the cities to work in factories. Young women left too, but they became prostitutes. Labor contractors came to the villages and recruited women for jobs in the cities. Many women did not know that the "job" was prostitution. Some of the more fortunate young women return. With the money they earned as prostitutes, they support the education of younger brothers and sisters, and pay off debts to keep the family land.7 Landlessness and severely deteriorating rural economies are direct causes of prostitution.
Rahab’s economic and social reality must have been much the same. So, she joined the people of Israel.
Footnotes
1. Gordon Mitchell, Together in the Land: A Reading of the Book of Joshua. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 134 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), p.165.
2. Carlos Dreher, "Josuè:¿modelo de conquistador?" Revista de interpretación bìblica latinoamericana 12 (1992), pp.49-67.
3. Gordon Mitchell, Together in the Land: A Reading of the Book of Joshua. (Sheffield:Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), p. 165.
4. Robert G. Boling, Joshua: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary, The Anchor Bible (Garden City and New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982), p.146.
5. Elaine Adler Goodfriend, "Prostitution" in David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.5 (New York:Doubleday, 1992), p.506.
6. Dreher, "Josué," p.62. See also Norman K. Gottwalld, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, NY:Orbis Books, 1979), pp. 556-558. Gottwald’s discussion appears to be the basis for Dreher’s comments.
7. Ann Danaiya Usher, "After the Forest: AIDS as Ecological Collapse in Thailand," Development Dialogue 1-2 (1992), pp. 20-21.
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