HistoricalChristian.Faith

Is the Rahab of Matthew 1:5 the same Rahab of Jericho?

Type: supporting argument (off-timeline) · Assessment: plausible, indeed probable — the identification is almost certainly what Matthew intends; the chronological objection shows only that the genealogy is telescoped, not that a different Rahab is meant · advanced by Bede and the patristic–medieval mainstream (Chrysostom, Jerome, Aquinas)

Related arguments: the God-fearing Gentile — the Hebrew Bible’s recurring outsider who confesses the God of Israel, the faith the New Testament reads as a foretype of the Gentile church (Matthew 8:11; Luke 4:27; 11:31); the theme runs across several timelines — see also Melchizedek, priest of El Elyon · Jethro’s conversion · the queen of the south as the Gentile church · Naaman’s confession · Nebuchadnezzar’s confession · the type as a canonical whole.

The claim

And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse.

— Matthew 1:5 (KJV), Matthew 1:5. The claim is that the “Rachab” whom Matthew names as the wife of Salmon and mother of Boaz — and so an ancestress of David and of Christ — is the harlot Rahab of Jericho.

Who advances it

The identification is the near-universal reading of the tradition. Chrysostom takes Matthew’s “Rahab” to be “the harlot” and makes her one of the reasons the evangelist “came as a Physician, not as a Judge.” Jerome, Bede, and Aquinas all read her as the Rahab of Joshua, written into the line of the Messiah as a sign of grace to Gentiles and sinners. It is only in the modern period that the chronological difficulty has been pressed as a reason for doubt.

The evidence for

Three considerations make the identification not merely possible but probable. First, Matthew’s pattern: the four women he names in the genealogy — Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and “her that had been the wife of Urias” — are all women of Gentile connection or irregular story, exactly the kind of figure the evangelist is reaching for, and the harlot of Jericho fits the set perfectly. Second, she is the only Rahab the biblical and Jewish tradition knew; there is no rival “Rahab” for Matthew to mean. Third, the spelling difference is trivial: Matthew’s Ραχάβ differs from the Septuagint’s Ραάβ only in transliteration of the Hebrew guttural, not in the name. The whole early reception, Jewish and Christian, took her marriage into Israel for granted (the rabbis married her to Joshua; Matthew to Salmon).¹

Adversarial assessment

What holds. That Matthew intends the Rahab of Jericho is as secure as such an inference can be: the four-women pattern, the absence of any other Rahab, and the trivial spelling variant all point one way. Nothing in the identification requires denying it.

What is overstated or imprecise. The real difficulty is chronological, and it should be stated plainly rather than waved away. Rahab lived at the conquest (conventionally c. 1400 or c. 1250 BC); David reigned c. 1000 BC. Yet Matthew lists only four generations across that span — Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David — where four centuries would require far more. Either the conquest is later than usually reckoned, or, far more likely, the genealogy is telescoped: names are omitted, as Hebrew genealogies routinely omit them (Matthew himself drops three kings between Joram and Uzziah to make his fourteens). If so, “Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab” may compress several generations, and Rahab need not be Salmon’s literal wife but an earlier ancestress named at the head of the line. That telescoping is a real qualification — it means Matthew’s list is selective, not a complete generation-by-generation record — but it does not touch the identification: it bears on how many links the list omits, not on which Rahab Matthew names.²

Assessment

Plausible, and probably right. That Matthew’s “Rachab” is the harlot of Jericho is almost certainly the evangelist’s intent — the four-women pattern, the lack of any rival Rahab, and the trivial spelling variant settle it. The genuine chronological gap does not defeat the identification; it shows only that the genealogy telescopes generations, as ancient genealogies do. The identity holds; the generation-count is selective.

Sources