15
2/09/10

CONTINUE:
v “the test of righteous works”
vv 2: 25-26

Both Abraham and Rahab are put forth as paragons of living faith, revered by Jews and Christians alike. We took a look at Abraham last week: now let’s get a little better acquainted with Rahab:
Rahab the harlot is the same as Abraham - but a little different.
This story brings up some “hard sayings”, however, if we “diligently seek”, the Bible provides the answers. Let’s look at a couple of more scripture that will give us some understanding: Deuteronomy 20: 16:.(It’s the 5th book in from the front of your Bible: the last book of the Torah… or Pentateuch. :
The Holy Bible, King James Version
Deut. 20:16But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee
for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: 17But thou shalt
utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and
the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath
commanded thee: 18That they teach you not to do after all their abominations,
which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your
God.

Here again we see God’s judgment on people who have turned so far away from Him that they will not…because they would not… repent.
So, how does this apply to Rahab the harlot?

Joshua 2

1And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly,
saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s
house, named Rahab, and lodged there.

2And it was told the king of Jericho,
saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to
search out the country. 3And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring
forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they
be come to search out all the country. 4And the woman took the two men, and hid
them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were:

5And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that
the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for
ye shall overtake them. 6But she had brought them up to the roof of the house,
and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.

7And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as
they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate.

8And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof; 9And
she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that
your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because
of you. 10For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for
you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the
Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly
destroyed. 11And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt,
neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the
LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. 12Now
therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have showed you
kindness, that ye will also show kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a
true token: 13And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my
brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.
14And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business.
And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly
and truly with thee. 15Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for
her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. 16And she said
unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide
yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye
go your way. 17And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine
oath which thou hast made us swear. 18Behold, when we come into the land, thou
shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down
by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy
father’s household, home unto thee. 19And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out
of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we
will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall
be on our head, if any hand be upon him. 20And if thou utter this our business,
then we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us to swear. 21And she
said, According unto your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they
departed: and she bound the scarlet line in the window.
22And they went, and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days,
until the pursuers were returned: and the pursuers sought them throughout all the
way, but found them not. 23So the two men returned, and descended from the
mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all
things that befell them: 24And they said unto Joshua, Truly the LORD hath
delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do
faint because of us.

…. if they would have repented would God have forgiven them? (The folks living in Jericho?,) as we see in Joshua 6: 21-25, Rahab is “saved”: With that in mind, how do we reconcile God approving, and or forgiving, activities that we first think of as “evil”? For instance: (again from Hard sayings of the Bible; it’s an excellent book for shedding a bit of light on some of these sort of things! If you don’t have a copy, I recommend you get one, it’s a pretty good reference.)
Title: Hard Sayings of the Bible
Author: Brauch, Manfred T., Bruce, F.F., Davids, Peter H., and Kaiser, Peter
H. Jr.

JUDGES
A MURDERER PRAISED?
(JUDGES 5:24-27)
Why is Jael praised for murdering Sisera, the commander of the army of
Jabin, king of Canaan, especially when it was a gross violation of Middle Eastern
customs of protecting one’s guest? Was she not being deceptive in the way she at
first extended lavish hospitality and then tricked him into sleeping while she
carried out her gruesome murder? And how, then, can she be praised and
eulogized as being the “most blessed of women”?
Once again Israel had been sold into the hands of an oppressor—this time it
was Jabin, the king of Canaan, who ruled from the city of Hazor (Judg 4:2).
Deborah, the prophetess and judge that God had raised up at that time to deliver
Israel, summoned Barak to rid the country of this new oppressor, but Barak
insisted that he would go into battle only if Deborah went with him. Deborah’s
prophecy was that God would therefore hand Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s
army, over into the hands of a woman (Judg 4:9). Here may be one of the most
important hints that the forthcoming action of Jael was divinely initiated.
In the meantime a Kenite (related to Moses through his wife Zipporah)
named Heber had taken up residence among the people of Israel, apparently
signaling something important about what his beliefs were, for residence in that
day had more attached to it than mere location. After the battle on Mount Tabor
in which Sisera and his troops were routed, Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled
on foot, while Barak finished off the entire chariot division of Sisera. Because
Jabin and the clan of Heber had a history of friendly relations, Sisera entered the
tent of Heber’s wife, Jael (Judg 4:17-18), a most unusual act in itself, for no one
went into a woman’s quarters when her husband was not around. After she had
refreshed him with a skin of milk and was instructed to stand watch while he
slept, she took a tent peg and hammer and drove the peg through his temple while
he slept.
Jael is usually charged with six faults: (1) disobedience to her husband, who
had friendly relations with Jabin; (2) breaking a treaty (Judg 4:17); (3) deception
in entertaining Sisera, giving no hint of her hostile intentions as she assuaged his
thirst by giving him a kind of buttermilk or yogurt when all he asked for was
water; (4) lying, saying, “Fear not,” when Sisera had much to fear; (5) violating
the conventions of hospitality by murdering one that she had agreed to accept as
a guest; (6) murder (Judg 4:21).
How many of these charges are true? Jael should not have lied, no matter
how grave her circumstances. But, as for the other charges, remember that this
was a time of war. Some had already shirked their potential for assisting Israel
during a desperate time of need, namely the city of Meroz (Judg 5:23). But here
was Jael, related only through marriage to Moses and Israel, who had chosen to
dwell in the midst of the people of God. When involuntarily thrust into the
vicinity of the war by virtue of the location of her tent, she did not hesitate to act
by killing the man who stood against the people of God with whom she had come
to identify herself. It is for this that she is so lavishly praised.
Some have argued that Sisera’s entering Jael’s tent also had sexual overtones.
The first phrase in Judges 5:27 may be a graphic description of a rape: “At her
feet he sank, he fell; there he lay.” Not only may the word “feet” be a euphemism
for one’s sexual parts, as it is in other parts of Scripture at times, but especially
significant are the verbs “lay” (Hebrew ), meaning “to sleep” or “to have
sexual intercourse” (for example, Gen 19:32; Deut 22:23, 25, 28; 2 Sam 13:14),
and “to bow” (Hebrew ), meaning “to bend the knee,” “kneel,” or in Job
31:10 to “crouch” over a woman. If this understanding of the delicately put
poetry is correct, then Jael is more than justified in her actions of self-defense of
her person as well. For years Canaanite men had been raping Hebrew women in
just this fashion.
There is no clear evidence that Jael disobeyed her husband. Nor is there clear
evidence that there actually was a treaty in force. But even if there were, it is
doubtful that it could be legitimately enforced during wartime, which very act
was a violation of the peace, since Heber had the same relations with Israel and
Jabin.
Jael did violate the conventions of hospitality, but this is at the level of
custom and social mores and not at the \Level of ethics. After all, this was a war
zone, and a war was going on.
What is clear is that Jael lied to Sisera and she killed him. Is her lying
justifiable? No! To say, as one commentator did, that “deception and lying are
authorized in Scripture any time God’s kingdom is under attack” is unsupported
by the Bible. This same writer went on to affirm that “since Satan made his initial
assault on the woman by means of a lie (Gen 3:1-5), it is fitting that the woman
defeat him by means of a lie,... lie for lie.” 7-1
I would agree with the conclusions reached over a century ago by Edward L.
Curtis:
But from a moral standpoint,... at first glance it appears like
the condemnation of a base assassination, especially when one
reads Judges 4:18-21. [Shall we suppose] that in good faith she
received Sisera and pledged him protection, but afterwards, while
she saw him sleeping, God moved her to break her word and slay
him?... The numerous manifestations of God, his frequent
communications at that time to his agents, might suggest that Jael
received [just such] a divine communication, but to consider her
act otherwise morally wrong and to use this as a ground for its
justification, is impossible. Right and wrong are as fixed and
eternal as God, for they are of God, and for him to make moral
wrong right is to deny himself. 7-2
Jael’s loyalty to Yahweh and his people is her justification. It was part of the
old command to exterminate the Canaanite (Deut 20:16). Jael came to the
assistance of the people of God, and for this she is declared blessed.
See also comment on Numbers 25:7-13; comments on Joshua 2:4-6.

So, we are in some pretty deep water here! Jael wasn’t even a Jew, only married to an in-law of Moses In-laws, possibly a Kenite, yet after all this, she is declared in Jud. 5 to be: 24Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent! Because she was faithful to God.

The Jews gave the story of Rahab a lot of attention; she is discussed extensively in several of the non-canonical books. As discussed here in “the Epistle of James” copied from the Libronix Library:
. (25) The author moves quickly on to a further example of how faith had to be put into action to earn the approbation of God and his salvation; the ὁμοίως δὲ καί serves to show that this is a second example with the same meaning as the first (not just a similar sense; Radermacher, 290).
Rahab was a person who fascinated the Jews (cf. Str-B I, 22–23; b. Meg. 14b–15a; b. Taan. 56; Ex. Rab. 27:4; Sipre Dt. 22(69b); Jos. Ant. 5:5–30). James says little about her, but much of what he does not say is assumed. For example, James does not mention her faith directly (cf. comment on 2:26), but not only does one have her speech in Jos. 2:9, 10 combined with the evidence of Heb. 11:31 and 1 Clem. 12:1, 8 to show that Christian tradition valued her as an example of faith, but also one finds in Jewish tradition that she was lauded as the archetypical proselyte, one “brought near” (Nu. Rab. Bemidbar 3:2; Midr. Ru. 2[126a]). Yet James naturally chooses to dwell on her deed, using the rhetorical question οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη to elicit the positive response from the reader. All her intellectual conversion would not have saved her life had she not protected the spies and followed their directions. Her actions are those of receiving hospitably (ὑποδεξαμένη in its classical sense) the spies (ἀγγέλους, normally used of heavenly messengers in the NT; the LXX follows the MT, using νεανίσκοι or ἄνδρες, while Hebrews and 1 Clement use the clearer κατάσκοποι) and then saving their lives (ἑτέρᾳ ὁδῷ ἐκβαλοῦσα, which contains the complex idea of her refusal to betray them to the king, her sending them out of the city through her window — thus the appropriateness of ἐκβάλλω — and her directing them to avoid the pursuit). This was seen in later Jewish literature as part of Israel’s treasury of merit (Marmorstein, Doctrine , 86).
Obviously James has an excellent example in Rahab, but his mentioning her right after Abraham may not be accidental. In 1 Clem. 10–12 both are cited as examples saved διὰ πίστιν καὶ φιλοξενίαν. Note that (1) the two works are probably not dependent upon one another, (2) the same deeds of both characters are recalled in 1 Clement as in James, and (3) faith and hospitality (a form of charity for which Clement is arguing) are stressed in Clement and are necessary for James’s argument. Thus H. Chadwick is probably right in claiming that both these works draw on a common Jewish tradition which cited these heroes as examples of charity (namely, hospitality; cf. Chadwick, 281). This is another clue as to the unity of this section, its theme of charity, and its dependence on Jewish tradition.
*
2. JAMES CLOSING ARGUMENT

(26) At this point James turns to sum up his argument, using a final comparison (ὥσπερ … οὕτως καί) which includes in its final clause a phrase which forms an inclusio with 2:17, neatly tying his midrashic exegesis together as a support for the main argument of 2:14–17. While the comparison may seem unnecessary at this point, a form of rhetorical overkill, it does bring the issue to a head.
Two points stand out in this verse (the final clause, ἡ πίστις χωρὶς ἔργων νεκρά ἐστιν is dealt with in 2:17). First, the γάρ indicates that the author does view his point as flowing out of the Rahab example. Thus he is clearly thinking of Rahab’s faith as well as her works. This clue fills in the assumed background of 2:25. Second, the σῶμα-πνεύματος example assumes a typical Jewish Christian anthropology. The author likely refers to the concept rooted in the creation narrative of Gn. 2:7—the person is composed of body and breath (which could equally well be termed soul or spirit). The separation of the two produces not the longed for release of the immortal soul from the prison of the body, but the simple consequence of death (Jn. 19:30; Lk. 23:46; Ec. 3:21; 8:8; 9:5; cf. 2 Cor. 5:1–10, where Paul longs for resurrection rather than a disembodied state). Neither soul nor body is desirable alone; a body without its life-force is simply a rotting corpse. Likewise, says James, faith is useful when joined to works, but alone it is just dead, totally useless. Dead orthodoxy has absolutely no power to save and may in fact even hinder the person from coming to living faith, a faith enlivened by works of charity (i.e. acts of love and goodness).* (libronix)

So, we come to the end of Chapter two, the test of perserverance; next week we will begin chapter three and the “test of the tongue” vv 3: 1-12.
DISCUSSION
• Who was rahab?
• What did she do?
• Why was she considered righteous, even though she did some questionable things?
• how does James summarize his admonishing that Faith without works is dead
• how does chapter two illustrate the “test of righteous works”?













(


OUTLINE OF JAMES
As john MacArthur points out in his bible commentary, the complexity of James causes it to be difficult to outline with several potential methods possible; the one he provides orders the book around a series of test’s by which the genuineness of a person’s faith may be measured:
Introduction (1.1)
I. The Test of Perseverance
II. The Test of Suffering (1:2 – 12)
II. The Test of Blame in Temptation (1:13-18)
III. The Test of Response to the Word (1:19-27)
IV. The Test of Impartial Love (2:1-13)
V. The Test of Righteous Works (2:14-26)
VI. The Test of the Tongue
VII. The Test of Humble Wisdom (3:13-18)
VIII. The Test of Worldly Indulgence (4:1-12)
IX. The Test of Dependence (4:13-17)
X. The Test of Patient Endurance (5:1-11)
XI. The Test of Truthfulness (5:12)
XII. The Test of Prayerfulness (5:13-18)
XIII. The Test of True Faith (5:19, 20) (MacArthur)


5]
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