There are among the Hebrews two names — רָהָב & רָחָב [Rahab (with he) & Rachab (with cheth)] — which among us Latins and Greeks are sometimes retained by the Hebrew sound, sometimes converted [changed]. When [they] are retained, [it] is thus wont to be written and read—
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—[thus wont to be written], as if [it] were one and the same [name]. Just as here it is in Greek Ῥαάβ [Rhaab], in Latin Raab, so also Ps. 86, where however in Hebrew [it] is Rahab [רָהָב]. But that arises from the same cause from which I said (bk. 1 ch. 2) [that] Jesus [Iesum] arises for Iehosuah [Joshua], and (in the book on the Apostles) John [Ioannem] or Jonas for Iochanan [Yochanan]. For [the Greeks and Latins] hate — as Josephus shows, bk. 1 Antiquities, and in his Life, and likewise tome 5 on John, [and] Origen — the sweeter tongues of the Latins and Greeks [hate] the harsh aspirations of the Hebrews, of which kind is that Raab [רחב], and, in the woman of whom here [it] is treated, the name Rachab [רָחָב]. But when [they] are converted [changed], our Rachab is latitudo [breadth], Job 36:16 and ch. 38:18, Proverbs 2:4; or, as in the Roots [Kimhi’s lexicon] Radak wills, [it] is “broad and ample [latus & amplus].” But Raab [רהב] [is] “strength [robur],” and “pride and vanity [superbia & vanitas],” or “robust, proud, and vain,” Job 9:13, ch. 26:12, Isaiah 30:7, ch. 51:9, Ps. 39[40]:5, Ps. 86[87]:4, Ps. 88[89]:10. Whence St. Jerome, on Isaiah bk. 9 in ch. 30: “The word,” he says, “the Hebrew Rahab — Aquila [renders] ὁρμήν [hormēn], that is, ‘impetus and pride’; Symmachus, ‘turbation [disturbance]’; the Seventy, μάταια [mataia], that is, ‘vanity’; Theodotion translated [it] ‘breadth [latitudinem]’ — [the word] which is written by three letters, רהב, and [it] is the same which in the Psalms is read: ‘I will be mindful of Rahab, and of Babylon knowing me.’” Which words Divine Augustine, on that Psalm, and other ancients, take about our this Raab [Rahab of Jericho]; but the Rabbins, Pagninus, Genebrardus, and almost all the more recent [take] about Egypt — which, on account of the forces and tumor [swelling] of mind, and arrogance, obtained that name — so that the sense [would] be: “I will be mindful of Egypt and of Babylon knowing me,” that is, when they shall know me, or when they shall embrace my faith and worship. Or, if [it] please to accede still more properly to the Hebrew with the 70: “I will make Egypt and Babylon to be mindful [as] knowing me,” that is, I will bring [it about] that among all who are in my Church, and know me, and profess my worship, the memory of Egypt and Babylon too may flourish — because, namely, as Isaiah 66:28 [it] is promised, they themselves will betake themselves to CHRIST’s faith, and the highest study of virtue. And thus about Egypt, Isaiah [in] the cited places always expounds [it] in [his] Commentary, Divine Jerome. Nor yet [is] the exposition of the ancients — for example, of Rupert — in that Psalm-place, about our Rahab, to be spurned. 1. because indeed those two words, Rachab and Rahab, [are] not only in letters, but also in significations, either the same, or exceedingly akin. For that which [is] “broad and ample” is generally “robust and proud,” whence among us, of him who [is] proud, [it is] customary: “Er macht sich breit” [German: “he makes himself broad” — i.e. puts on airs]. And in Seneca epist. 121, about the inconstant and proud [man]: “Now he dilates himself even to envy; now he subsides, and is contracted below the humility of the truly abject.” 2. because, as we heard from Divine Jerome, Rahab too was translated [as] “latitude” by Theodotion. 3. because the sense also agrees most aptly. For since, with it, in that Psalm the Church is described and praised — [namely] that to it Babylon, the Philistines, the Tyrians, and the Ethiopians, the Gentiles, are about to come — is [it] not rightly placed in the first place, [she] who, of the Gentile Canaanites, either the first of all, or certainly the chief of all, and with chief study, joined herself to the true religion? But of this afterward. Now I advise [moneo], [that] in certain Greek exemplars of Judges
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—[Judges] 1:19 [it is] Ῥηχάβ [Rhēchab]. But [that is] from another verb and signification. For from כבר [rekeb/Rechab — reading uncertain] it is, and it signifies “a chariot [currus].” And 2 Kings [2 Sam.] 4:2, from the same verb similarly, one of the princes of the robbers [is] Rechab [רֵכָב], in Greek Ῥηχάβ; and Nehemiah 3:14, the prince of the district Bethacaram [Beth-haccerem]. But this our [woman] is always called by Josephus Ῥαχάβη [Rhachabē], or Rachabe.