Joshua 2:6

But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) The stalks of flax.—It is remarked that flax and barley are both early crops (Exodus 9:31), and that the first month (see Joshua 4:19) was the time of barley harvest. (Comp. 2Samuel 21:9.)

Benson Commentary

Joshua 2:6-7. Up to the roof — In those countries the roofs of the houses were made quite flat, and it is probable it might be customary to lay the stalks of flax upon them that they might be dried by the heat of the sun. Fords — Or, passages; that is, the places where people used to pass over Jordan, whether by boats or bridges. The gate — Of the city, to prevent the escape of the spies, if peradventure Rahab was mistaken, and they yet lurked therein.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-7 Faith in God's promises ought not to do away, but to encourage our diligence in the use of proper means. The providence of God directed the spies to the house of Rahab. God knew where there was one that would be true to them, though they did not. Rahab appears to have been an innkeeper; and if she had formerly been one of bad life, which is doubtful, she had left her evil courses. That which seems to us most accidental, is often overruled by the Divine providence to serve great ends. It was by faith that Rahab received those with peace, against whom her king and country had war. We are sure this was a good work; it is so spoken of by the apostle, Jas 2:25; and she did it by faith, such a faith as set her above the fear of man. Those only are true believers, who find in their hearts to venture for God; they take his people for their people, and cast in their lot among them. The spies were led by the special providence of God, and Rahab entertained them out of regard to Israel and Israel's God, and not for lucre or for any evil purpose. Though excuses may be offered for the guilt of Rahab's falsehood, it seems best to admit nothing which tends to explain it away. Her views of the Divine law must have been very dim: a falsehood like this, told by those who enjoy the light of revelation, whatever the motive, would deserve heavy censure.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Stalks of flax - literally, "the carded fibres of the tree." The flax in Palestine grew to more than three feet in height, with a stalk as thick as a cane. It was probably with the flax stalks, recently cut (compare Exodus 9:31, note) and laid out on the house roof to dry, that Rahab hid the spies.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax—Flax, with other vegetable productions, is at a certain season spread out on the flat roofs of Eastern houses to be dried in the sun; and, after lying awhile, it is piled up in numerous little stacks, which, from the luxuriant growth of the flax, rise to a height of three or four feet. Behind some of these stacks Rahab concealed the spies.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Up to the roof, which was plain, after the manner. See Deu 22:8 Matthew 10:27 Mark 2:4 Acts 10:9. Laid in order upon the roof, that they may be dried by the heat of the sun.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But she had brought them up to the roof of the house,.... Before the messengers came; though Abarbinel thinks it was after they were gone, when she took them from the place of their concealment, and had them to the roof of the house, where she thought they would be safe and secure, should the messengers return, or others come in search of them, who would not, as she imagined, look for them there:

and hid them with the stalks of flax; that is, under them, or "in flax of wood", or "a tree" (b); which may with as much propriety, or more, be called a tree than hyssop, 1 Kings 4:33; as it is in the Misnah (c). Moreover, there was a sort of flax which grew in the upper part of Egypt towards Arabia, as Pliny says (d), which they called "xylon", or wood, of which were made "lina xylina": though the words may be rightly transposed, as by as, "stalks of flax", which are large and strong before the flax is stripped or beaten off of them; the Targum renders it bundles of flax, or handfuls and sheaves of them, as they were when cut down and gathered:

which she had laid in order upon the roof; to be dried, as Kimchi observes; and Pliny (e) speaks of flax being bound up in bundles, and hung up and dried in the sun; which was done that it might be more easily stripped and beaten off; and the roofs of houses in those countries being flat, were very fit for such a purpose; See Gill on Deuteronomy 22:8; and these being now laid there were very suitable and convenient to conceal the men under them. This seems to be in favour of Rahab, as being a virtuous and industrious woman; see Proverbs 31:13.

(b) "in linis ligni", Montanus; "vel arboris", Vatablus. (c) Sabbat, c. 2. sect. 3. & Bartenora in ib. (d) Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 1.((e) Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

But she had brought them up to the {c} roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.

(c) Meaning, on the house: for then their houses were flat above, so that they might do their business on it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. the roof of the house] The roofs of Eastern houses were flat (St Mark 2:4), and were made useful for various purposes, as drying corn, hanging up linen, and preparing figs and raisins. They were also used as (a) places of recreation in the evening; (b) sleeping-places at night, when the interior apartments were too hot or sultry for refreshing repose; (c) places for devotion and even idolatrous worship. Comp. 1 Samuel 9:25-26; 2 Samuel 11:2; 2 Samuel 16:22; 2 Kings 23:12; Daniel 4:29; Acts 2:1; Acts 10:9. The Jewish Law required that they should have a battlement, in order that guilt of blood might not come upon the house through any one falling from it (Deuteronomy 22:8). “Parts of Roman houses were also furnished with such roofs called solaria, because they lay exposed on all sides to the sun, and also mœniana, as the Italians now also call them altana.” Lange’s Commentary.

the stalks of flax] “stubble of flaxe,” Wyclif. Unbroken flax is here meant, the stalks of which, about Jericho and in Egypt, reached a height of more than three feet and the thickness of a reed. It was anciently one of the most important crops in Palestine (Hosea 2:5; Hosea 2:9).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - But she had brought them up. Literally, and she caused them to ascend; but our version has very properly (see ver. 4) given the preterite the pluperfect sense here. "Two strangers, Israelites, spies, have a safe harbour provided them, even amongst their enemies, against the proclamation of a king." "Where cannot the God of heaven either find or raise up friends to His own causes and servants?" (Bp. Hall.) To the roof of the house. The flat roofs of Oriental, and even of Greek and Italian houses, are used for all kinds of purposes, especially for drying corn and other things for domestic use (see 1 Samuel 9:25, 26; 2 Samuel 11:2; 2 Samuel 16:22; 2 Kings 23:12. Also Acts 10:9, where the roof is used as a place of retirement and repose). Stalks of flax. Literally, flax of the tree. The word translated flax either of the raw material or of the linen made from it. Here it must mean flax as it came cut from the field; that is, as our version translates it, the stalks of flax (λινοκαλάμη, LXX.), which grows in Egypt to a height of three feet, and may be presumed to have attained a height not much less at Jericho. The word עָרַד which signifies to lay in a row, and is used of the wood on the altar in Genesis 22:9, and of the shew bread in Leviticus 24:6, confirms this view. It is obvious that this would have formed a most sufficient hiding place for the fugitives. "Either faith or friendship are not tried but in extremities. To show countenance to the messengers of God while the publique face of the State smiles upon them, is but a courtesie of course; but to hide our own lives in theirs when they are persecuted is an act which looks for a reward" (Bp. Hall). Joshua 2:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When the king of Jericho was informed of the fact that these strange men had entered the house of Rahab, and suspecting their reason for coming, summoned Rahab to give them up, she hid them (lit., hid him, i.e., each one of the spies: for this change from the plural to the singular see Ewald, 219), and said to the king's messengers: כּן, recte, "It is quite correct, the men came to me, but I do not know where they were from; and when in the darkness the gate was at the shutting (i.e., ought to be shut: for this construction, see Genesis 15:12), they went out again, I know not whither. Pursue them quickly, you will certainly overtake them." The writer then adds this explanation in Joshua 2:6 : she had hidden them upon the roof of her house among stalks of flax. The expression "to-night" (lit., the night) in Joshua 2:2 is more precisely defined in Joshua 2:5, viz., as night was coming on, before the town-gate was shut, after which it would have been in vain for them to attempt to leave the town. "Stalks of flax," not "cotton pods" (Arab., J. D. Mich. ), or "tree-flax, i.e., cotton," as Thenius explains it, but flax stalks or stalk-flax, as distinguished from carded flax, in which there is no wood left, λινοκαλάμη, stipula lini (lxx, Vulg.). Flax stalks, which grow to the height of three or four feet in Egypt, and attain the thickness of a reed, and would probably be quite as large in the plain of Jericho, the climate of which resembles that of Egypt, would form a very good hiding-place for the spies if they were piled up upon the roof to dry in the sun. The falsehood by which Rahab sought not only to avert all suspicion from herself of any conspiracy with the Israelitish men who had entered her house, but to prevent any further search for them in her house, and to frustrate the attempt to arrest them, is not to be justified as a lie of necessity told for a good purpose, nor, as Grotius maintains, by the unfounded assertion that, "before the preaching of the gospel, a salutary lie was not regarded as a fault even by good men." Nor can it be shown that it was thought "allowable," or even "praiseworthy," simply because the writer mentions the fact without expressing any subjective opinion, or because, as we learn from what follows (Joshua 2:9.), Rahab was convinced of the truth of the miracles which God had wrought for His people, and acted in firm faith that the true God would give the land of Canaan to the Israelites, and that all opposition made to them would be vain, and would be, in fact, rebellion against the Almighty God himself. For a lie is always a sin. Therefore even if Rahab was not actuated at all by the desire to save herself and her family from destruction, and the motive from which she acted had its roots in her faith in the living God (Hebrews 11:31), so that what she did for the spies, and thereby for the cause of the Lord, was counted to her for righteousness ("justified by works," James 2:25), yet the course which she adopted was a sin of weakness, which was forgiven her in mercy because of her faith.

(Note: Calvin's estimate is also a correct one: "It has often happened, that even when good men have endeavoured to keep a straight course, they have turned aside into circuitous paths. Rahab acted wrongly when she told a lie and said that the spies had gone; and the action was acceptable to God only because the evil that was mixed with the good was not imputed to her. Yet, although God wished the spies to be delivered, He did not sanction their being protected by a lie." Augustine also pronounces the same opinion concerning Rahab as that which he expressed concerning the Hebrew midwives (see the comm. on Exodus 1:21).)