Consider also the case of Rahab, a prostitute living in the city of Jericho. The Israelites were about to begin their conquest of the Promised Land. When Rahab realized that Jericho was doomed, she told the two Israelite spies that the city was paralyzed with fear of the advancing Israelites. She hid the spies and asked them to swear to her that she and her whole family would be preserved when Jericho was conquered. The spies instructed Rahab to congregate her family inside her house, situated on the city wall. Leaving the house would mean destruction with the rest of the city. (Josh. 2:8-13, 15, 18, 19) However, Jehovah later told Joshua that “the wall of the city must fall down flat.” (Josh. 6:5) What the spies had stipulated as the place of safety now seemed to be in jeopardy. How would Rahab and her household be delivered?

When the time came to capture Jericho, the Israelites shouted and proceeded to blow the horns. “It came about that as soon as the people [of Israel] heard the sound of the horn and the people began to shout a great war cry,” states Joshua 6:20, “then the wall began to fall down flat.” The collapsing wall was now beyond human control. Miraculously, though, the crumbling of the city wall stopped at Rahab’s house. Joshua ordered the two spies: “Go into the house of the woman, the prostitute, and bring out of there the woman and all who belong to her, just as you have sworn to her.” (Josh. 6:22) All in Rahab’s house were saved.

For the Israelites in Egypt and for Rahab in Jericho, deliverance depended on remaining in their houses. This required faith and obedience. (Heb. 11:28, 30, 31) Imagine how each Israelite family must have fixed their eyes on their firstborn as “there began arising a great outcry” in one Egyptian household after another. (Ex. 12:30) Imagine how Rahab must have huddled together with her family as she felt the rumbling of Jericho’s collapsing walls coming closer and closer. It took real faith on her part to remain obedient and stay in that house.