Rahab

Rahab (; Arabic: رحاب, a vast space of a land) was, according to the Book of Joshua, a Gentile woman who lived in Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites in capturing the city by hiding two men who had been sent to scout the city prior to their attack. In the New Testament, she is lauded both as an example of a saint who lived by faith, and as someone "considered righteous" for her works. The King James Version renders the name as Rachab, after its literal spelling in Greek, which differs from the spelling for Rahab in James and Hebrews. Most modern versions render it as Rahab ignoring the distinction. Rahab's profession The Hebrew אשה זונה (ishah zonah), used to describe Rahab in , literally means "a prostitute woman". In rabbinic texts, however, she is explained as being an "innkeeper," based on Targum Jonathan and other texts. Rahab's name is presumably the shortened form of a sentence name rāḥāb-N, "the god N has opened/widened (the womb?)". The Hebrew zōnâ may refer to secular or cultic prostitution, and the latter is widely believed to have been an invariable element of Canaanite religion, although recent scholarship has disputed this. However, there was a separate word, qǝdēšâ, that could be used to designate ritual prostitutes.