Rahab sought four [things] from the spies, of [which]—
(col. 363)
—of which the two former are the primary demands [postulata]; the two remaining [are], as it were, confirmations of these. And of those former [two], the one is general: that they should show mercy to her father’s house — and indeed in that manner in which she herself had shown mercy to them — modestly, that is, showing the reason why she dared to seek this of them. Now the name “mercy” Abulensis thinks is to be taken here very narrowly, [namely] when someone does a kindness to another not [as his] desert [i.e. gratuitously] — which Cajetan too interprets [as] “grace [favour].” But although in the latter member [of the demand] this can have place — because she did well to the spies who had no merit [to it] — nonetheless [it does] not [hold] in the former: for she was already meriting that a kindness be done to her by them, and, on her account, to her paternal house. And at the outset indeed [it] was a merit — such as is wont to be [present] in receiving and returning a favour [gratia], about which Seneca bk. 3 On Benefits [treats], and a certain Poet:
“There is a certain pleasure in testing a merit [favour] upon an ungrateful [person].”
But afterward, when a promise and an oath were added, [the mercy] put on a certain character of justice. And the Hebrew name חֶסֶד [chesed, “loving-kindness, mercy”] extends most widely in the scriptures, so as to encompass and embrace every beneficence which is conferred upon others, whether living or dead, whether wretched or not wretched, whether deserving or undeserving, whether justly and piously or liberally and kindly. And thus too Naomi [speaks] to her daughters-in-law, Ruth 1 v. 8: “May the Lord do mercy [chesed] with you, as you did with the dead, and with me.”
The other demand she explains distinctly and specially, which she had already sought in general. For by the name “father’s house” she understood her very father, and [her] mother, and their sons and daughters — that is, herself, and her brothers and sisters — and the goods and resources of all these. And by the “mercy” which she sought, she meant the safety and preservation of all these while Jericho was being captured: “That you save,” she says, “my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all [things] that are theirs, and rescue our souls [lives] from death.” For as to [the fact] that Kimhi [Radach] and Masius say she made no mention of herself, and bring forward reasons for her silence — she herself cries out against [it], when she says “our souls,” as [is] still clearer in the 70 [LXX]. But that indeed [is] a marvel, [that] she took thought for [her] parents and brothers and sisters before herself. So great was her piety and love toward them, so great [her] care and solicitude about them, so great [her] confidence about herself before the spies themselves, and their Leader, [their] people, and [their] God. About [her] husband and children [she says] not even a word, because — as [was] said above, quest. 3 — she was a harlot, and lacked these. But whether, to these now named, others were afterward added, will be said [at] v. 18, ch. 6 v. 26. Now “to rescue a soul from death” is to preserve life itself. For often, by metonymy [μετωνυμικῶς, metōnymikōs], the cause is put for its effect. For the rest, in place of what our Interpreter says, “that you save,” and the Hebrew, “that you deliver,” the 70 used a most elegant word: ζωγρήσετε [zōgrēsete, “you shall take alive”]. For ζωγρεῖν [zōgrein] is to take someone alive and preserve [him] — [as] in Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus bk. 1 (where [he speaks] of Croesus), bk. 2, and in the scriptures, 1 Chron. 25 [?]; 2 Tim. 2 v. [26], where our [Interpreter has] “they are held captive” — by the devil, namely, but so that they are still alive and can come to their senses [repent]: just as, in Athenaeus bk. 13, a certain impure old nonagenarian said [that] he was captured, in the midst of the troops over which he presided—
(col. 364)
—[in the midst of the troops], by wine [taken] from a harlot. Luke 5 v. 10: “From now [on] you shall be taking men [alive],” not in any manner [whatever], but so that those whom the good fisher St. PETER shall have taken, he may preserve alive and unharmed for the spiritual and heavenly life. Of the two latter [demands], the one is the request of an oath: “Swear to me,” she says, “by the Lord.” For “the end of every controversy of men, for confirmation, is an oath,” Heb. 6 v. 26 [16]. The other is the request of some sign, by which she, in that supreme tumult and slaughter which — the city [being] captured — she foresaw in [her] mind to be coming, might admonish the spies and the whole army of the Israelites of the oath rendered, and ward off all violence from herself and her own. These two latter [demands], therefore, are, as I said, confirmations of the former, and signs by which those [former] might be shown and made firm and stable — so that the former sign signifies [is] chiefly [for] Rahab herself, but the latter for the spies themselves and all the Israelites. “[Give] me,” she says, “a true sign” — that is, a sign which, when I shall have shown it to you and to those laying waste the city and filling [it] with slaughter, I and all mine may be truly and certainly safe. And by Cajetan [this] is ill-[taken as] the same as the former oath, namely.