By Joseph Shulam.
This Shabbat reading from the Torah is Shelach Lekha, Numbers 13:1-15:41 “Send Men to Explore the Land of Canaan.
The reading from the prophets is Joshua 2:1-2:24.
And the reading from the New Testament is Hebrews 3:7-4:1.
Since I have liked spy stories since childhood, the reading this Shabbat is one of my favorites. It has every element of a good spy story.
An Overview of the Three Texts.
Numbers 13. The Spies and the Border of the Promised Land.
Twelve spies are sent to scout the land of Canaan. Ten bring back fear-inducing reports; two (Joshua and Caleb) trust God’s promise. The people rebel: God responds with judgment—40 years of wandering. Chapter 15 returns to laws, especially about offerings and unintentional sin, ending with the commandment of tzitzit.
Joshua 2. Rahab and the Spies in Jericho
Joshua sends two spies into Jericho. Rahab, a Canaanite woman and innkeeper, hides the spies and declares her faith in the God of Israel. She makes a bold, faithful agreement to save her household.
Hebrews 3. A Call to Faith and Endurance
The passage reflects on Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness (Numbers 13–14). Believers are not to harden their hearts. The Hebrew writer emphasizes the superiority of Yeshua to Moses. He also warns against unbelief and exhorts the community to hold fast to their confidence.
God’s people are often tested at the breakthrough threshold. In our age of uncertainty—wars, identity crises, moral ambiguity—the call to believe God’s promises still demands courage over fear. Obedience is not passive submission but active trust—seeing with the eyes of faith even when the world looks impossible.
The tzitzit is a garment tasseled with a set of long cords, sometimes blue, and knotted in strange patterns. Rahab tied a scarlet cord to the window to give these Hebrew spies a way to escape from the Jericho police, who were looking for them. (Josh 2:18) Please keep reading to understand the meaning of what Rahab did and what she earned from her action and kindness to these Hebrew spies. Tangible symbols anchor spiritual obedience—tzitzit and scarlet cord are covenant reminders. In a world of abstraction, God gives us symbols (Shabbat candles, mezuzah, communion, tefillin) to root faith in physical memory.
The spies who didn’t believe in God’s ability to keep his promises were punished. God is just, but He redeems, saves, and forgives our sins. Faith can turn judgment into deliverance, whether in church, synagogue, or on the street. Never judge by past or pedigree—Rahab, a Gentile and outsider, becomes a mother in Israel. Let your faith define your future.
Holiness is communal. Whether it’s sin offerings or exhortation, obedience thrives in accountable fellowship. In an age of isolation and self-focus, Scripture invites us to walk together, share burdens, and guard one another’s hearts. Build communities of encouragement where obedience and creativity are both cultivated and encouraged.
God is not looking for robotic obedience but trust-filled, intelligent responsiveness built on faith. 21st-century believers are called to engaged obedience—not mere compliance but thoughtful, Spirit-filled action rooted in God’s Word, and in a set of experiences that are built on three elements of past experiences, common goals, and built on trust and confidence that the mission will be fully accomplished
The main lesson from this Torah, the prophets’ reading, is that Faithfulness includes creativity. God doesn’t need robots that obey and do what is required without thinking with imagination and creative artistic personal initiatives, like Rahab, who finds faithful ways to act even when the Torah or tradition does not spell it out or make the action required evident in advance. God gave us a head to use, not just for a hat rack.
Reading these three texts on Shabbat, I most appreciate the freedom God gives me to obey His commandments with artistic creativity and personal imagination. God doesn’t look for wooden soldiers—God looks for men and women with creativity and imagination to improvise and get the job done, even with good advice from a prostitute from Jericho named Rahab.
In our generation that values autonomy and innovation, this Shabbat’s texts show me that exact obedience to God’s Word and creative responsiveness to His Spirit are not opposites—but companions. Ten spies failed not because they were cautious, but because they lost sight of God’s promises and their faith in God.
Rahab the creative prostitute succeeded not because she followed instructions like a German Nazi soldier, but because she trusted the God of the Hebrews, a God that for her was new, but worth trusting in his people and their promises.
I have found that new believers who have just given their lives and died with Yeshua and resurrected from baptism have a strong faith and desire to trust God and follow His commands. The courage and determination of these Hebrew spies was, in my opinion, why she was willing to endanger herself and help. By endangering herself and helping those Hebrew spies, she saved herself and her family and became a part of Israel’s pantheon of saintly mothers in Israel’s biblical history.
As the book of Hebrews reminds us, we are part of a greater household. Let us not harden our hearts, but trust Him fully, with all our hearts and souls, and with all our souls, and with all our most of the most. This is my translation into English of the Hebrew word me’odecha = your most of the most.
Another part of this reading from the book of Joshua is almost always misunderstood: the Israeli spies within the city of Jericho. The city of Jericho is considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world. A city is organized and built by a community with a shared responsibility for the community. The citizens are the city’s government, and they have a shared responsibility and duty for all the needs and interests of the community. I realize that today the concept of a city has changed somewhat, but essentially, a city still does have a collective responsibility for the citizens of that city.
The citizens of Jericho built a wall and a tower together to protect the community. Here is the text of the most interesting and vital part of the story of the Israeli spies and Rahab the Prostitute. She was also a shrewd negotiator and businesswoman.
“Please swear by the LORD that you’ll be as kind to my father’s family as I’ve been to you. Also give me some proof that you’ll protect my father, mother, brothers, sisters, and their households, and that you’ll save us from death.” The men promised her, “We pledge our lives for your lives. If you don’t tell anyone what we’re doing here, we’ll treat you kindly and honestly when the LORD gives us this land.” So she let them down by a rope from her window since her house was built into the city wall. (She lived in the city wall.) She told them, “Go to the mountains so that the men who are pursuing you will not find you. Hide there for three days until they return to Jericho. Then you can go on your way.” The men told her, “We will be free from the oath which you made us swear, ⌝if you tell anyone what we’re doing here⌟. When we invade your land, tie The HOPE of this red cord in the window through which you let us down. Also, gather your father, mother, brothers, and all your father’s family into your house.” (Joshua 2:12-18 GWORD).
This text hardly makes any sense – “The HOPE of this red cord” – what could that be? The translators allowed the context to rule their understanding, and they ignored the word Hope – Tikvah in Hebrew, ( like in the national anthem of the state of Israel that starts with the words, “As long as in our hearts there is HaTikvah the Jewish soul…”) It is harder to understand if you ignore the bigger picture in this event.
What are the two Israeli spies telling this Jericho woman? Let me back up a little. She made a deal with these two Israeli spies that if she helped them escape, they would save her whole family. She made them swear that they would keep their promises, and she let the two Israeli spies down from the window in the wall to escape. Now, these two spies promise to save her and her family. But how will they know where she and her family will be so they can easily find them in the battle? The red cord with which she lowered them out of the walls of the city of Jericho will hang out of the same window that she helped them escape. So, now this red cord becomes the hope of her salvation—the symbol of her charitable and gracious willingness to help these two trapped Israelis.
This phrase, “The HOPE of the Red Cord”, is a difficult one. But the context of the text and the end of this story is that this one good deed, one blessing of two Jews, became the hope of her and her family’s salvation. Rahab, who was married in Israel, stopped her business and became one of the mothers of Israel. Yeshua is one of her descendants in the Matthew 1 genealogy of Yeshua, the hope of salvation for all human mammals.
In conclusion, a non-Hebrew prostitute from Jericho who performed an act of kindness and business with two Hebrew spies saved them from certain catastrophe, won the salvation of her whole family, and also became an honored mother and wife to one of Israel’s prominent leaders.
The moral of this story is simple: Doing good things and becoming a blessing to others is always the right thing to do and will always be a blessing to anyone who helps others. But, more specifically, in this case, I believe the specific principle is still valid and vital. Especially for Christians who help Jews escape from antisemitic persecution and stand with Israel and support the household of God in Israel and for Israel in the diaspora, their hope is their very kindness and support for the Jews, and especially their very vulnerable Jewish communities that are an easy target for the antisemites.
You can’t be worshiping and praising Yeshua as the Son of God and your saviour and ignore the suffering of his flesh and blood brothers and sisters, Jews who are being persecuted. Standing with the King of the Jews is natural. You, my dear brothers and sisters, were saved by a crimson cord, crimson by the blood that ran down his face from the crown of thorns, crimson from the blood that dripped from his hands and for his feet crimson of hope for the sinners of the world, i.e., all of us! The red rope that hung from Rahab’s window and saved the two Israelis became the hope of her and her family’s salvation. My complete confidence in my salvation comes from my faith and assurance that God never forgets his promises because He experienced the price of my and your salvation by the pain and blood running down the hands, feet, and face of Yeshua on the cross. That blood and pain suffered by the King of the Jews is also the hope of my salvation and your salvation, because it is the only real hope that all of us have – Yeshua the King of the Jews!
Imagine those Jew haters, merchants of hate: antisemites, Nazis, racists, coming before the judge, seated on his throne as it is recorded in the book of revelation. Yeshua is sitting calmly and coolly on his throne of judgment. The bailiff calls, Adolf Eichmann, Dr. Mengele, and George Wallace, and they come up with their head hanging down and their chin scraping the heavenly floor, trembling. Very calm and with a smile, Yeshua looks at each one of these Jew haters, antisemites, and baby killers, men who hated their fellow humans created in the image of God Himself, how much are they willing to pay just to find the courage to answer the judge sitting on the throne.
Yeshua need not even say one word before the throng of people from every place, color, and continent. Perhaps a conversation would sound like this:
“Hey, Dr. Mengele, did you attend church in 1941-1945?”
Mengele would answer, “Lord, I went to church on Sundays and sometimes on other occasions.”
Did you see me hanging nailed to the cross?”
Yes, Lord!”
Do you appreciate that I gave my life and my blood for you?
“Yes, Lord!”
Who do you think I am, someone from Mars or Venus? Did you not read your bible?”
Mengele, “Yes, Lord, I read my bible every Sunday in Church.”
Yeshua is spending a few minutes with Mengele to demonstrate how usurped it is for those who claim that they are saved by his blood and suffering to hate Jews. How could you hate Jews and worship the King of the Jews? Yes, the Messiah, from the tribe of Judah, a super Jew, circumcised on the eighth day, crucified as the king of the Jews.
This Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho, understood something that all antisemites and racists who hate Jews and Blacks and Indians and just about anyone who is not precisely just like themselves, are racists. All she wanted from the two Israeli spies was assurance that she and her family would be saved when the Israelites conquered Jericho. She got her assurance, the red rope that she used to save the two Israeli spies.
We have something much more powerful than an old red rope that was once used to save two Jews. We have the blood that surpasses all understanding flowing from the head, hands, and feet of that Galilean born in Bethlehem. A Jew who is returning to Jerusalem to rule forever the sheep and judge the goats who rejected, persecuted, and lost what it means to be a human being!
Anyone can help someone bleeding on the road to Jericho free of charge. Anyone can feed a hungry person and invite the suffering to join him for a falafel lunch on Jerusalem’s streets, even in Ramallah, Jenin, São Paulo, or New York. But, also anyone can hate because someone is of a different color, speaks a different language, is poor, is short, is blond, or is a redhead.
Rahab understood that the Israelites were coming in the name of the God who is the father of all. He so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son to save humanity from itself by sharing his divinity and blood for all. Yes, the Jericho prostitute understood more of the GOOD NEWS, the Gospel, than many theologians and pastors.
I am sure Rahab worked on Shabbat and might have eaten a ham and cheese sandwich. I am also sure that she understood that these two Jews who came to spy in Jericho were not of the same race or color as she was! But she helped these Hebrew spies. The help she gave these two Israelites became the hope of her and her family’s salvation. Please help us fight antisemitism and racism now! Stand with Yeshua (Jesus) and with Israel and prepare the path for his return soon!