implying that she was alive at the time he wrote, hut
that the family of strangers of which she was reckoned the head continued to dwell among the children of Is- rael. May not the three hundred and forty-five "chil- dren of Jericho" mentioned in Ezra ii, 34; Neh. vii, 36,
and "the men of .lericho" who assisted Nehemiah in
rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem ( Neb. iii,2 | ha\ e been their posterity? Their continued sojourn anion-- the Israelites ,-,s a distinct family would he exactly analo-
gous to the caM-s ,,f the rLenites, the house of Rechab, the Gibeonites, the house of Caleb, and perhaps others.
Si e .ll l.-ll 11(1.
\ i aids Rahab herself, we learn from Matt, i, 5
became the wife of Salmon, tin- son of Xah-
shon, and the ancestress of Boaz, Jesse's grandfather.
Tin- suspicion naturally arises that Salmon may have been one of the spies whose life she saved, and that
gratitude for so great a benefit led, in his case, to a more ission, and obliterated the memory ofanj past attaching to her name. We are expressly told
that the spies were " young men" (Josh, vi, 23) Sept.
I ■ ■ , ii. I : and the example of the former spies
who were Bent from Kadesh - Barnea, who were all '•In ails of l-rael" (Numb, xiii, 3), as well as the im- portance of the . en ice to be performed, would lead one
i that they would he persons of high station.
But, however this may he. it is certain, on the authori- ty of Matthew, that Rahab became the mother of the hue ii which Bprang David, and, eventually, Christ;
and there Can he little doubt that it was so staled in
the public archives from which the evangelist extract- ed our Lord's g< nealogj . in w hich only four women are
named — viz. Thamar, Rachab, Ruth, and Bathsheba — who w re all, apparently, foreigners, and named for that reason: for that the Rachab mentioned by .Matthew is Rahab tin- harlot i- a- certain as that David in tie- gt n- ealogy is the same person as David in the I Samuel. The attempts that have been made to prove Rachab different from Rahab (chiefly by Outhov, a Dutch professor, in the / ens. iii, 438: the
earliest expression of any doubt is by Theophylact, in the 1 1th century i in ordi r to g< i out ol the chronolog- ical difficulty, are Bingularly absurd, and all thi because, even if successful, they would not diminish the difficulty as long a- Salmon remain- a- the son of Xah- Shon and the aiiee-tor of BoaZ. However, as there are still found those who follow < luthov in his opinion, or at least speak doubtfully (Valpy, Greek Test, with Eng- lish notes, on Matt.\,b\ Burrington, On tht Genealogies, i, 192 I'.'l.ele.: Kuinol.o,, MattA,5\ (ilshaus.-n. ////-/.). it may he as well to call atn tit ion. with Dr. .Mill (p. 131),
to the exact coincidence in the age of Sail a- the
son of Nahshon, who was prince of the children of Ju- dah in the wildernes i, and i hat of Rahab tin- harlot and to observe that tin- only conceivable reason for the men- tion of Rachab in Matthew's genealogy is that she was a remarkable and well-known person, as Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba wen-. The mention of an utterly un- known Rahab in the line would be absurd. The allu- sions to •• Rahab the harlot" in Heb. xi,31 ; James ii. 25, by classing her among those illustrious for their faith, make it still more impossible to suppose that Matthew- was speaking of any one else. The four generations, Nahshon. Salmon. Boaz, Obed, are. never! I necessarily all consecutive. See David. Thi not scom. however, to he any force in Bengel's remark. adopted by Olshausen, that the article i.'j.- rrjg'Paxap) proves that Rahab of Jericho is meant, seeing that all the proper names in (he genealogy which an- in the oblique case have the article, though manj of them oc- cur nowhere else, and that it is omitted before ftlaplae
in ver. Hi. See GENEALOGY 01 JESUS CHRIST.
The Jewish writers abound in praises of Rahab, on account of tin- great service she rendered their ances- tors. Even those who do noi deny that she was a harlot admit that -In- eventually became the wife of a prince of Israel, and thai many great persons of their nation sprang from this union. The gen( ral statement is. that she was ten years of age at the time the He- brews quitted Egypt; that she played the harlot dur- ing all the forty years they were in the wilderness; that she became a proselyte when the spies were received by her: and that, after the fall of Jericho, no less a per- BOnage than Joshua himself made her his wife. Site
i- also i ounted as an ancestn ss of Jeremiah, Maasi iah,
llanameel. Shallum, Baruch, Ezekiel, Neriah. Seriah,
and lluldah the prophetess. See Talm. Babyl.
fol. 14, col. 2 : lruchasin,x,l; Shalshalet Hal
i: Abarbanel, Kimchi, etc.. on Josh. vi. 25; Mitzvoth
Toreh, p.112; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. ad Matt.i. 1: M. u-
s. hen. N. T. Talmud, p. W>. See Joshua.
•_'. RahaVs Character. This ha- been a p deep interest and no little controversy. In tic narra- tive of these transactions. Rahab is called l-: which our own. after the ancient versions, renders -har- lot." Tin- Jewish writers, however, being unwilling to entertain the idea of their ancestors being involved in a disreputable association at tin- commencement of their -rcat undertaking, chose to interpret the word ess," one who keeps a public-house, as if from "i"". " t<> nourish" (Josephus, A nt. v. 1 ; ii and vii: comp.the Tar- gum, ami Kimohi and Jart hi oU tin- i, xt i. Christian translators, also, an- inclined to adopt this interpreta- tion for the sake of tic character of a woman ofwhom the apostle speaks well, and who would appear, from