Bob Kimmerling Poet Rhyme

Notes About The Poem

The story of Rahab the harlot is fnd in Joshua Chapter 2

Rahab the Harlot

Who would have thought that scarlet thread would save you, 
hung from your window ledge close by our harlot bed. 

You own that Inn, built into Jericho’s thick and stone built wall.
Who would have thought the God you feared, 
with army’s last triumphant trumpet blast,
would cause that wall to fall. 

That same windowed wall shows faces of the men you bed 
while rooftop flax dries in the sun, and money from that sex, 
and money from your flax cloth spun, hard earned to feed your family, 
hard earned for all, hard won, hard earned for one and all.
 
And now the terror of that tribe, whose fear of God-reknown 
has gripped your town and now knocks on your door. 
Not another customer, 'dear', but spies that come before your dread, 
before each stone comes rushing down,
before those stones crush every head,
before the curse to make your town no more.

Who would have thought to place your name with Sarah's faith 
when in haste you hid those men in rooftop flaxen den, 
and bargained each for saving lives before invading men 
would come again. Yes, should spies go and not be found, 
they would surely come again, burning Jericho to the ground.

Who would have thought in time to see your name with Judah's lion. 
No longer harlot's shame but in mother-line to Christ our Lord 
whose faith, with Sarah and with Abraham, 
in Hebrews and in James, is something we acclaim,
beside those greater honoured names in faith's fine hall of fame.
 
Who would have thought your scarlet thread,
perhaps snatched from your shameful bed, 
would win acclaiming faith and save those souls most certain dead, 
your work that saved through faith, both work and faith,
with saving grace, saved losing of your head.

That day the saving scarlet thread was seen,
and also bloody red, from hand and foot and thorny crown, 
and holding all your harlot’s blame, and all your harlot’s shame,
your Christ dropped bloody scarlet threads, dripped quietly to the ground.

Thus Rahab takes a finer name, that name above all other names, 
and through her line, and scarlet thread, 
shall rise with Christ's own rising dead.

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