Rahab: A personal story:“The Day the Walls Would Fall"

By Rahab

The wind is strange today.

Rahab a personal story

It whispers against the stone, as if it knows what’s coming—what I know is coming. The city is quieter than it should be. People still move through the streets, muttering about the Israelite camp just across the river, but underneath, there’s fear. The kind that clings to your skin. The kind I’ve lived with for years.

I stand in the doorway of my house, my fingers brushing the scarlet cord tied in the window. It's bright against the pale stone, like spilled blood that has somehow chosen mercy. A mark. A promise.

Today, I go to fetch my family.

My brothers. My mother. My father.

The ones I haven’t lived with in years. The ones who stopped calling me daughter.

They don’t speak of what happened, but I remember. I was young, and beautiful, and foolish—or maybe just trusting. I don’t know his name anymore. I only remember the moment when everything changed. When my father wouldn’t meet my eyes. When my mother covered my face with her shawl and told me not to speak. When I became the shame no one wanted to name.

They didn’t say I had to leave.

But they stopped leaving food out. They stopped saving a place for me. And so one day I walked to the edge of the city and found a place in the wall. The outer wall, where the night sounds never stop and the stone is cold.

It’s where they send women like me.

The ones who were touched and never cleaned. The ones who weren’t kept pure. The ones who learned that survival means using the only power you have left.

I built a life in that wall. Not a noble one—but it was mine. I became the one people whispered about and came to anyway. I listened. I learned. I watched the city rot from its core while the priests danced in golden robes.

But I never forgot the girl I used to be.

Then the spies came—two of them, strange in speech but quick in mind. I saw something in them I hadn’t seen in any of Jericho’s men: truth. And when they spoke of the God of Israel, my heart did something strange. It stirred.

I told them: I know your God has given you this land.

I didn't know I was speaking faith. I only knew I was tired of serving gods who only took, and men who only lied. I wanted something clean. Something new.

So I hid them. Lied for them. Sent them safely on their way. And in return, they gave me this cord. Hang it in the window, they said. Gather your family inside. When the walls fall, you will be spared.

But now I must face the ones who cast me out.

I tie my shawl tight and step into the street. They’ll look at me with questions in their eyes—why now? Why should we listen to you? But I will tell them the truth: that destruction is near, and mercy has found me. That the God of Israel doesn’t care what I’ve done—but who I am now.

If they come, they will be saved.

If they don’t… well.

Either way, I will not die as the girl in the wall.

M. Joseph Hutzler,

Eschatologist