The Scarlet Cord

There has been much speculation about the scarlet cord that Rahab was told to hang from her window in Joshua 2:18. Ancient Christian interpretations take it to represent the blood for Christ. For example in the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians chapter 12, it says that Rahab was told “that she should hang forth from her house a scarlet thread. And thus they made it manifest that redemption should flow through the blood of the Lord to all them that believe and hope in God.” Or consider Augustine’s treatment in Psalm 87 where Rahab “was told to hang out of the window a line of scarlet thread, that is, to bear upon her forehead the sign of the blood of Christ. She was saved there, and thus represented the Church of the Gentiles.”

However, “typological connections of this sort must be handled with great care. Indeed, a real typological connection between the Testaments should be recognized in the light of the Bible’s own consciousness.” ¹Martin H. Woudstra, The Book of Joshua, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1981), 75. Also, we must ask if this was what the original author intended or the original audience would have heard. We must not rush to the sensus plenior ²In my opinion, the sensus plenior (or “fuller sense”) can be a valid interpretation of a text but only when used sparingly and with great care, following the New Testament example. Also, the original meaning of the should not be ignored, changed or eclipsed.before we have heard the voice of the original human author.

The most immediate and obvious meaning to be found in the scarlet cord is that it was a fairly clear signal. It would be visible and stand out enough to identify the home to be protected. It may be that there is no significant meaning beyond that. However, the choice of a scarlet rope is not without some background to the spies. In Leviticus 14 scarlet yarn is used to cleanse a person cured of leprosy. While it is not the same exact same phrase used here, it is a similar idea. It could be that the spies recognized that this person with three strikes, she was female, gentile, and a prostitute, had been made clean. But that seems a stretch since even the LXX used different words to translate the yarn in Leviticus 14, and the cord in Joshua 2.

Perhaps another historical context the scarlet cord may harken to is the Passover. Scarlet lamb’s blood was put on the doors of the homes of the Jews and the destruction of the firstborn passed over their homes. All who were inside were safe (cf. Josh 2:19 ,Ex 12:22). Again, it seems a stretch to go from blood on doorposts and lintel to a cord in a window. Certainly both were symbols to the destroyer to pass over that house but they were also different from each other; “The only time that the color of blood is specified in the Old Testament is in 2 Kngs 3:22, which states that ‘the water looked red–like blood.’ The color word here is the normal word for ‘red’.³David M. Howard Jr., Joshua, The New American Commentary, vol 5, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 116.

So the immediate and historical context yields no additional significant meaning for the scarlet cord. Now we may ask if the New Testament has anything to say about it. Rahab is mentioned three times in the New Testament and one of those is in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1:5 with no further comment. The other two (Heb 11:31 and James 2:25) mention her being delivered for protecting the spies but nothing about the scarlet cord.

Actually, most of the instances of the word ‘scarlet’ are negative in the New Testament. Jesus is dressed in a scarlet robe after he was scourged in Matthew 27:28. In the book of Revelation the beast is scarlet (17:3) and the woman who represents Babylon is dressed in scarlet and gold (17:4). In the other two occurrences scarlet represents the riches of the corrupt world (18:12, 16).

It seems that the best interpretation would be the simplest: the scarlet cord meant nothing more than to designate the one home to be protected.