2:1 Joshua son of Nun sent two spies out from Shittim secretly and instructed them: 1 “Find out what you can about the land, especially Jericho.” 2 They stopped at the house of a prostitute named Rahab and spent the night there. 3 2:2 The king of Jericho received this report: “Note well! 4 Israelite men have come here tonight 5 to spy on the land.” 2:3 So the king of Jericho sent this order to Rahab: 6 “Turn over 7 the men who came to you 8 – the ones who came to your house 9 – for they have come to spy on the whole land!” 2:4 But the woman hid the two men 10 and replied, “Yes, these men were clients of mine, 11 but I didn’t know where they came from.
1 tn Heb “Joshua, son of Nun, sent from Shittim two men, spies, secretly, saying.”
2 tn Heb “go, see the land, and Jericho.”
3 tn Heb “they went and entered the house of a woman, a prostitute, and her name was Rahab, and they slept there.”
4 tn Or “look.”
5 tn Heb “men have come here tonight from the sons of Israel.”
6 tn Heb “and the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying.”
7 tn Heb “bring out.”
8 tn The idiom “come to” (בוֹא אֶל, bo’ ’el) probably has sexual connotations here, as it often does elsewhere when a man “comes to” a woman. If so, the phrase could be translated “your clients.” The instructions reflect Rahab’s perspective as to the identity of the men.
9 tn The words “the ones who came to your house” (Heb “who came to your house”) may be a euphemistic scribal addition designed to blur the sexual connotation of the preceding words.
10 tn Heb “The woman took the two men and hid him.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix on “hid” has to be a scribal error (see GKC §135.p).
11 tn Heb “the men came to me.” See the note on this phrase in v. 3.