AFTER the hiding of the spies, we read [that] Rahab thrice made words [spoke] to them. For, first, she showed what she knew about them, and on that account sought an oath from them for the preserving of herself and her own, v. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Secondly, she taught them whither they ought to go, and how long to lodge [linger] on the way, v. 16. Thirdly, she approved what they had said, v. 21. In the first of these, then, is the difficulty, when she says [in] v. 9, “I know that the Lord has delivered the land to you” — whence did she know that? from GOD, or from all [men], or in some human way? This latter [option] perhaps would not displease those who reason thus. First, Rahab could hear from men [that] God had delivered the land to the Israelites. For this these very [Israelites] often kept saying — and indeed publicly, through their heralds [caduceatores] to other nations, when they sought a passage from them through their lands, as [in] Deuteronomy 2 v. 29. And [things] which are so publicly done or said are wont to be carried most easily to all the neighbouring peoples, and everywhere narrated. Secondly, she could know the same [thing] by human reasoning, because, namely, she saw [that] the Israelites had cast so much terror upon her compatriots, and [that] they themselves [were] so dispirited by fear. For who [is] so crude and unskilled that he would not reason thus: “Lo, our enemies are so [great], and so strong and robust, but we all quake in a wondrous manner, our spirits fail, and we tremble in [our] whole body. It is therefore all over with us: victory [rests] with the enemy; and God delivers us and all ours into their hands.”
(col. 358)
—and God delivers us and all ours into their hands. For thus too, in Ovid [Naso], Metamorph. 8, Scylla [says]: “And he prevails by [his] cause… [Minos] and, with arms defending [his] cause, we shall, I think, be conquered.” Thirdly. Rahab herself seems plainly to show to all [that] she employed this kind of natural mode of knowing, when she testifies [that] so great a dread of her own citizens was born from the hearing of the marvels and portents and victories which had befallen the Israelites, v. 10: “We have heard,” she says, “that the Lord dried up the waters of the [Red] Sea, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites.” And further, in the 70 [LXX], who add a causal particle, more clearly: Ἀκηκόαμεν γὰρ [akēkoamen gar, “for we have heard”]. And most clearly [in] v. 11: “And hearing these [things] we were greatly afraid.” Now this mode of knowing and reasoning [is] most usual and daily among all nations — to fear for themselves from the heard prosperity of enemies and the slaughter of neighbouring nations, and indeed the more, by how much the greater and more marvellous those [things] were. All histories which treat of wars [are] full of examples. Fourthly, if there had been any supernatural knowledge in Rahab, it would have been in that [above all] which she said [in] the same v. 11: “The Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth below.” But this too she could know naturally, either because others said [it], or because she would judge [that] those marvels and noble victories could set out [proceed] from none but the greatest and most powerful of gods — just as, forsooth, on account of certain unbelievers, the Apostle says, [in] Rom. 1 [v.] 20: “The invisible [things] of him, from the creation of the world, through the [things] which are made, are understood [and] beheld.”
1. There was supernatural knowledge in Rahab, because Heb. 11 v. 31 [says] there was in her faith — and indeed that [faith] which [the things] here said pertained to; and [that] its matter, about which it was exercised, can be understood to have been [this] — because [the Apostle] takes all those examples of faith which he there recounts from the Scriptures, so that [they are] deeds, namely, in which faith shone forth, [drawn] from those [Scriptures]. But of Rahab’s own deed, in which her faith shone forth, we have [nothing] except this. For the Apostle relates two [things] about her: [1] by faith she did not perish with her unbelieving compatriots; [2] by faith she received the spies with hospitality — of which [two] this latter is the cause of that former. For because by faith she received the spies, therefore she did not perish with her unbelieving citizens. But the faith by which she received them — what other [is it] besides this: that she knew [that] God had delivered the land to the Israelites, and the [things] which are added? For in these words is included: First, that she herself knew God. For if she knew him to deliver the land, she first knew him. [2] To know God — not any [god] whatever, but him who [is] the true God, whom therefore she calls Jehovah. Thirdly, to know that he was propitious to the Israelites, in that he does so well for them. [4] And [that he was] not only now [propitious]: but had already been so of old, when [in] Genesis 15 v. 18 [and] ch. 26 v. 4 he promised this land to their Fathers, and by promising delivered [it]. For in Hebrew it is: “I knew, that the Lord has delivered to you this land.” For neither do I approve Lyranus and Abulensis, who explain this past [tense] by a future, “he will deliver.” For [there is] no cause for omitting the proper signification, as Masius too admonishes. If, however — [which] is permitted — we take [it as] a future, a supernatural knowledge will still be had, on the authority of Origen hom. 3, who, on account of these words, calls Rahab prophetic. [5] [That she] not only knew these [things], but even assented to them — which is [of faith]—
—to believe utterly. For this she could not [do] without an illumination of the divine mind and a holy motion of the will. Secondly, if we diligently look at the series and context of Rahab’s words, we shall find [that] the cause and head of all [the things] she here says is this: “The Lord your God, he is God,” etc. For, so that the cause of so great a strength of the Israelites, [and] of so many and so marvellous portents which befell them, be indicated, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek and Latin, a causal particle — “because” or “for” — is added: “For the Lord your God…” But this could not be comprehended, approved, and received except by a knowledge which is above man and [above] the natural [order]. For, first, the true God is here recognized, who [is] Jehovah; then the same God is understood [to be] signally the God of the Israelites, not of the Gentiles. Thirdly, the immensity of his nature and power is proclaimed, because he is said to be “God in heaven above, and on earth below.” And it is just as if it were said [that] his nature is not contained in any one place, however great and ample. How great and vast [is] the orb of the lands? By how many and how great parts [is] the space of the heavens greater and vaster? And yet God is neither in the earth alone, nor in heaven alone; but he fills each — that is, the highest and the lowest, and therefore also all the intermediate [things] — as our Suárez rightly notes, bk. 2 On God ch. 2; and therefore the nature of God holds and permeates this whole, whatever it be, the universe of the world; and thence flows that immense force and divine power [numen] of the same, by which he rules and governs heaven and earth, Angels and men — the whole world, I say — by his own arbitrament.
And although some of these [truths] could be naturally known by certain Philosophers cleverly investigating the force of nature, [they could] nonetheless not [be so known] by a woman — and one given over to the trifles of a harlot, and [the] younger in years; nor even by Philosophers [could] that [be] defined: [that] God is the accused [i.e. the one meant] — whom the never-yet-seen newcomers, foreigners, and enemies, the Jews, worship. See, says Cajetan, in that woman, not only fear, but faith and a manifest confession, that Jehovah, who is Eloah of Israel, he himself is Elohim in heaven and earth; and therefore [it is] not to be wondered at if she was saved. For [the God] whom he illumined within and made the preserver of his elect, [him] he also preserved from the ruin of Jericho. The same is the opinion of Theodoret quaest. 1, of Masius, and of Abulensis quaest. 48.
Secondly. The same knowledge in Rahab was natural, as regards the proposing cause — or (what amounts to the same) [in this respect]: that, in order that Rahab might perceive [it] with that mind and will, and cling to those [truths], men proposed them to her immediately, not an angel or God. This indeed is against Abulensis in the cited place, but not against the truth. For, first, if either an Angel had appeared to Rahab herself, or God had spoken these [things] to her through some sonorous voices, or forms and species impressed in her mind, she herself would have said [so], just as Cornelius said, Acts 10, [that] “an Angel stood by him,” or as the Prophets [say] “God spoke to them.” But now she only says “I know.” [2] Whence she knows, she expounds — as [the] third argument, proposed at the outset, has explained. [3] The other arguments there likewise confirm nearly the same proposition. [4] The other Jerichoites are said by St. Paul, Heb. 11 v. 31, [to be] ἀπειθήσαντες [apeithēsantes, “having disbelieved / disobeyed”], that is unbelieving, because she had refused to believe. For ἀπειθεῖν [apeithein] does not simply mean to lack faith, but to lack [it] when one could and ought—
(col. 360)
—[and ought] to have had [it]: or [it means] to be unwilling to believe, [and] to be unwilling to comply with and obey the [things] which are proposed. Therefore the Jerichoites could, if they had willed, have had faith in the same words in which Rahab had [it]. Therefore in the same manner the matters were also proposed to them. Otherwise each could say, “No Angel was present to me. God was unwilling to speak to me — and in what manner could I give faith to these his utterances?” For “faith [is] from hearing,” Rom. 10 v. 17. The mode, therefore, by which Rahab was brought to faith, was of this kind. Far and wide, even to the more remote nations, a most certain report about the [things] which God had done in Egypt on account of the Israelites had spread abroad; and likewise about the miracle of the Red Sea dried up, and other similar [things], very many narrated these to the neighbouring Canaanites; and finally [that] the slaughter of Sihon and Og, most powerful Kings of the Amorites — they said [it] either was, or certainly was asserted by the Israelites [to be the work of] the God best and greatest of all, by whose beneficence and power all these [things] were carried on. Rahab heard [this]: and, God pouring light into her mind and moving her will, she knew the true [things] and believed them. The other Jerichoites heard [it too], and the Lord offered them the light and the divine motion, but they repudiated [it] and refused to assent.
There was, therefore, in Rahab knowledge indeed — on account of the excellent and interior divine light and motion of those very matters — [that was] supernatural; but in a natural mode it first took its beginning from men and the external senses, not from an Angel or from God. And thus I understand what Josephus says, bk. 5 ch. 1: ὄμνυσι πᾶς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ διδαχθῆναι [omnysi… ek tou theou didachthēnai, roughly “[she avows that] all was taught by God”]. Yet I said “immediately,” because both [the fact] that men said these [things], and this whole [matter] which I have called report and the narration of men, stood forth [as] a benefit of God. But at what time this knowledge and assent of faith was first made, I cannot precisely say: I think, however, [it was] one or another day before the arrival of the spies themselves, or perhaps on that very day and moment when she first beheld them, and at once, this faith urging [her], invited them and received [them] into hospitality, and was made safe.