Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Michael Miles" <mwm AT zadok.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lewis Reich" <lewreich AT javanet.com>
To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 9:07 AM
Subject: Rahab was a businesswoman (was: Rahab (was: `ad hayom hazeh))



Lewis Reich wrote on February 8, 2000:
Subject Rahab was a businesswoman

> Rahab is identified as a zonah, which, at least in all the other
occurrences
> of the word that I can recall, means whore.  Yet, if I recall correctly,
at
> least some of the traditional Jewish commentaries (I'll have to check
which
> ones when I get home) interpret her profession as something like
> "innkeeper", attributing the word not as stemming from l'znot but from
> la'zon, to provide sustenance.
>
> If my recollection is correct, what can we make of that suggestion?  What,
> other than a concern for the reputation of the two spies whom Rahab hid,
> might have motivated the suggestion?
>
> Lewis Reich
>
>

Rahab was a female businesswoman occupied with the business of selling flax,
 which she processed on her roof.  In the time that Rahab was alive it was
not
 uncommon for business travelers to stay at the place of a merchant, keeping
in
 mind that travel times were greatly lengthened over what they are today and
this
 being the case, men would have stayed at her place of business while
carrying
on transactions.  Since little has changed from that time until this time in
that
male businessmen engaged in her trade would have spoken of her as being a
harlot in jealousy for her business acumen and the fact that men stayed the
night,
 it would hardly be out of the scope of human action to look at 'harlot'
being
a label adhered to the woman by business rivals and the normal gathering
of wagging tongued gossips.

I would propose that Rahab was no harlot, but was called an harlot and this
tag stuck.

Michael Miles