Hebrews 11:31

Hebrews 11:31. Nor does previous personal character hinder its power, or previous separation from the covenant people. By faith, as shown in her confession, ‘Jehovah is God in heaven above and in the earth beneath,' ‘and He hath given you the land' (Joshua 11:9).

Rahab the harlot, and a Canaanite, perished not with those who, having heard of God's miraculous dealings on behalf of Israel (Joshua 2:10), persisted in their defiance, and refused submission. Her faith showed its reality (see James 2:25) in her receiving and protecting the spies, and found its reward in her preservation, and finally in her becoming an ancestress of our Lord. ‘When she had received' in the Authorised Version represents the expression of her faith (properly ‘receiving as she did'), as if it were prior to the faith; it was really its result, or more properly the working of the faith itself. A careful attention to the tenses, and to the absence of the article whereby this clause is closely connected with the preceding, would be sufficient of itself to reconcile the teaching of Paul and James.