Another Rahab
Judges 1:22, 24-25
The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the LORD was with them. … And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go.
Had the conquest of Bethel been written by the losing side, by, say, some surviving scribe who fled to a mountain cave to recount the carnage, I’m sure he would’ve chosen the strongest invectives when decrying the treachery of this unnamed man here in Judges 1:22-25. Something like, “Traitor,” or “Judas,” or “Benedict Arnold,” or “sell-out,” or worse. Nevertheless, the truer story here is that an imago dei man was suddenly faced with the most crucial choice of all—between life and death—the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of earth—eternally winning or eternally losing—and he chose the wiser of the two.
Marvel at the precise and profound timing of Providence here, friend. We don’t know how long the spies waited in hiding. We don’t know if this man was the first man to cross their path or the thousandth. We don’t know whether they targeted him because he was all alone or perhaps unarmed, or whether he was just the first person that happened upon them in the spur of the moment. But the fact that he’s willing to sell out his society just like that as soon as the opportunity arises tells us all we need to know.
This man can still choose to die right there on the spot, or scream to nearby guards, or give the spies wrong directions and lead them into a trap, but he doesn’t. Between the lines of this hurried exchange is a man at war within himself—a man at odds with his world—a man on the run from the emptiness of culture and religion and society. A man who—get this—has been searching for a way out at the very moment these Israeli spies are searching for a way in.
When the final roll is called up yonder, this man’s legacy will read something like this: “Traitor to earth; hero to heaven.”