Bad Girls of the Bible: Rehab – The “Harlot” Who Saved a Nation

If you’ve ever heard Rehab’s name in church, it almost always comes with a label: 

“Rehab the prostitute.” 

Out of all the things she did, all the roles she played, the one word attached to her forever is her occupation.

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She’s remembered as the “harlot of Jericho,” a shady woman living on the city wall, useful only as a prop in Israel’s conquest story. But dig a little deeper, and Rehab turns out not to be a disposable side character at all - she’s a hero, a strategist, and one of only five women named in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).

The Story as Written:

Rehab shows up in Joshua 2, when two Israelite spies sneak into Jericho. Where do they go first? To Rehab’s house. Let’s just say no one would have blinked at strangers slipping in and out of a sex worker’s door.

When the king of Jericho finds out the spies are in town, Rehab hides them under flax stalks on her roof. When soldiers come looking, she lies to protect them. Then she makes a bold demand: when Israel invades, spare me and my family. The spies agree, and Rehab’s red cord hanging from her window becomes the sign that saves her household (Joshua 2:17–21).

The Skewed Facts:

Rehab’s occupation has overshadowed everything else about her for centuries. She’s “Rehab the prostitute,” never “Rehab the protector,” “Rehab the negotiator,” or “Rehab the ancestor of kings.”

The text doesn’t shame her for her work. It presents her choices as courageous, clever, and wise. While the rest of Jericho trembled, Rehab made a deal, ensured her family’s survival, and aligned herself with a new future.

And yet, tradition keeps the spotlight on her stigma, not her strategy. It’s a textbook case of how women’s labor - especially sexual labor - gets used against them, even when that very labor is what ensures survival.

Rehab in the Big Picture:

Rehab’s story doesn’t end in Jericho. She marries Salmon, becomes the mother of Boaz (Ruth’s husband), and is named in the line that leads to King David and eventually Jesus (Matthew 1:5).

Yes, the so-called “harlot” of Jericho is the great-great-great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king and an ancestor of the Messiah himself. Try erasing that from history.

Rehab as a Guide for the Anti-Trafficking Movement:

Rehab’s story offers a roadmap for today’s anti-trafficking and sex worker rights movements - if we are willing to see it:

• She understood survival strategies are not shameful. Like many criminalized women, Rehab used what she had - her home, her networks, her wits - to secure safety. Modern movements should stop shaming survival strategies and start asking: how do we value and build on them?

• She centered family and community. Rehab didn’t just save herself - she demanded protection for her whole household. Survivors today tell us the same thing: any “rescue” that doesn’t account for family, housing, and community safety is incomplete.

• She negotiated on her own terms. Rehab was not a passive victim waiting to be rescued. She made the plan, cut the deal, and set the terms. Anti-trafficking work that strips agency away from survivors repeats the mistakes of history.

• She shifted allegiances to secure a future. Rehab aligned with those who would guarantee her family’s survival. This is what peer-led, survivor-centered advocacy does: it builds new pathways, not by pitying, but by partnering.

In other words: Rehab reminds us that people branded as “fallen” often hold the sharpest wisdom about survival, safety, and justice. She shows us that anti-trafficking solutions cannot be written without the voices of those who live at the margins.

The Modern Connection:

Rehab’s story is one of survival, resistance, and wisdom. She used the resources and position available to her to protect her family and shape history.

For sex workers and criminalized women today, her story feels familiar:

• The world reduces us to labels.

• Our survival strategies are twisted into stigma.

• Our courage and brilliance get erased in favor of a one-dimensional caricature.

But Rehab reminds us that survival is not shame. Survival is resistance. And survival can change the course of history.

Reclaiming Rehab:

Rehab wasn’t a disposable side character, and she certainly wasn’t a morality tale about sin. She was a strategist, a negotiator, and a matriarch in the line of redemption.

Maybe the reason she was branded “bad” is the same reason so many women are: because it’s easier for powerful men to label us by our labor than to admit they depend on our courage.

Rehab saved a nation. 

And she did it while the world called her a whore.

✍️ This post is part of SWOP Behind Bars’ series Bad Girls of the Bible, exploring how women’s reputations have been shaped by stigma - and what that means for sex workers, survivors, and the future of the anti-trafficking movement.