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By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not; by the same gospel faith Rahab, who, as the Jews read the word, Jos_2:1, hnwz; was an hostess, and kept a house of entertainment, and so came to lodge the spies; or, as the Septuagint read it, and the Holy Ghost confirms it here, and Jam_2:25, was a public harlot, who gat her livelihood by the prostitution of her body, as well as the sale of meat and drink: so notorious a sinner as she, and a Canaanite too, was preserved from the destruction that was inflicted by the Israelites on the unbelieving and disobedient inhabitants of Jericho, being, after her exclusion out of the camp, in order to a legal purifying, admitted into God’s church, and honoured by him to be a mother in Israel, from whom the Messiah should descend, Jos_6:23,25.
When she had received the spies with peace: the full proof of her being a believer, was her entertaining of the spies sent from Joshua to Jericho, preserving them when sought for, and dismissing them, advising them what they were to do in order to their safety, Jos_2:3,10, to the end. The ground of all this, was her faith in God’s promise of giving Canaan to Israel, confirmed by the great works she heard God had done for them, and her own expectation of good only in the portion of God’s people, to whom she desired to be united, which was afterwards accomplished. Neither doth Paul and James contradict each other concerning her faith and works, Jam_2:25; for she was empted from destruction by the same faith by which she was justified; and her faith was justified to be sound and true, by her carriage to the spies, for it was a full demonstration of her faith in God.