Before crossing the Jordan, Joshua decides to send out a reconnaissance mission especially to spy out Jericho, the first city of which they will be engaging the local population in battle. Given Joshua’s earlier decision to cross the Jordan in three days, he probably intends this reconnaissance mission to be brief, as the spies can conceivably go, stay overnight, and return again the next day. But as it turns out, the mission takes slightly longer than Joshua anticipated (cf. Josh. 2:22–23).

There is some debate as to whether Rahab was a common prostitute or a cultic prostitute who would have played a more highly regarded role in Canaanite religion. But regardless of which, her house would have been a place where the presence of male strangers would arouse the least suspicion, thus likel…