What is in a Name? Rahab, the Canaanite, and the Rhetoric of Liberation in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

As many native women in conquest accounts (historical and fictional), Rahab in Joshua 2 is often “hypersexualised” in biblical scholarship. One narrative detail gratuitously read in sexual terms is her name, Rahab, which is linked to the idea of “broadness.” Traditionally, “Rahab” is read as a harsh nickname highlighting the woman’s occupation, prostitution, or as a reference to her genitals. Against these readings, this discussion considers the language of “broadness” in biblical profiles of the Promised Land and the Torah, key motifs from Joshua 1–2, and demonstrates that the trope of “broadness/spaciousness” constitutes the rhetoric of liberation in the Hebrew Bible. That is, God is often cast as someone who brings afflicted/landless people to a broad locale or “broadens/enlarges” their hearts through his Torah. Since Rahab is linguistically and thematically linked to these acts, it is argued that through her Joshua 2 offers a midrash on Joshua 1. That is, from within Canaan, her name reverberates God’s earlier promises to Israel (“he [God] has created a wide expanse”) and she, herself, models a life informed by the Torah (vv. 9–12). Arguably, through her, Joshua 2 also offers a microcosm of YHWH’s own nature and modus operandi in the world.

Keywords

• rahab
• joshua
• conquest
• promised land
• torah
• midrashic derivations of names